True Colors
by hakaseheart
Summary: After an odd fortune from Navi, Marvelous takes some rather dubious advice in the name of finding treasure.
1. Suspicion

Part 1: Suspicion

* * *

><p>"Let's Treasure Navigate~!"<p>

Navi squealed her usual fanfare before flying up into the air, in precisely four and three-quarters circles, then smashing spectacularly into one of the porthole windows that decorated the side of the galleon. "The danger that comes, the doctor knows best..." she trailed off as she slid down the glass and into the window's cradle.

"_Hakase_...?" Ahim mused to herself as she stood and retrieved the not-bird from her resting place. There were a few different words that meant doctor, but Navi had specifically used _hakase _in her fortune, which turned every set of eyes in the room to the surprised-looking blond sitting on the sofa.

There was a beat, then a cry of shock as Gai leaped to his feet and pointed blatantly at Doc. Attention shifted from Doc, to Gai, then back to Doc again as the noisier boy failed to have anything relevant to add.

Ahim took another step back towards the couch. "Doc-san, would you happen to know anything about this clue?"

Doc raised his hands in denial and shook his head, blond curls bouncing about in the process. "No, not a thing!" He looked at each of the crew's curious faces in turn, then jumped from the couch and pulled Navi from Ahim's arms. "What kind of danger is coming? What kind of doctor are we looking for? Navi, tell them it isn't me!"

Before Doc could shake the not-bird too violently, she was plucked from his hands by a somewhat annoyed Captain Marvelous. "Oi, don't beat the bird up too badly," he half-commanded in his usual drawl. Navi began to stutter thanks before the smirk spread across Marvelous' face and he continued, "Wait until after it's given a better fortune to beat it up, yeah?"

Navi pulled herself out of the captain's hands and began flitting about the cabin nervously, shocking Gai out of his stupor by smacking him in the head in the process. "That's all for today! Try again tomorrow, maybe?" she squealed, then before any of the crew could stop her, flitted through a door and off towards the inner depths of the galleon. With a leap, Luka started to follow her, but gave up before she even made it down the stairs.

"Well, that was less useful than usual," Luka muttered as she walked back towards the lounging area. Marvelous was back to sitting in his chair, foot tapping anxiously against the wooden floor, while Joe was back to doing sit-ups on the nearby bench. Rubbing his head sullenly, Gai nodded in agreement and sat back down in a chair.

Ahim, however, was seated on the couch next to a distraught Doc, one gentle hand clasping both of his as she tried to reassure him. "Navi tends to give us rather vague hints, Doc-san," she said kindly, smiling lightly all the while. "I am sure she was referring to some other doctor, or professor, down on the surface, and not commenting on your own personal knowledge."

"But what if Navi did mean me?" Doc pressed, worry evident as much in his voice as it was in his slightly trembling body. "What if I know something that can help us but I don't know that I know it? How am I supposed to help us then?"

"Eh, whatever," Luka said dismissively as she sat on the corner of the table. "It's probably some former warrior down on Earth anyway. No use getting worked up over it."

Joe finished a sit-up and turned to sit normally on the bench, reaching for a nearby towel to wipe the sweat away from his brow. "And we won't find them sitting here talking about it, either."

"Right," Marvelous said, drawing the crew's attention back to him and the serious grin spreading on his face. "So let's get going!"

* * *

><p>The hospital was normally a flurry of hustle and bustle to begin with, but people were moving even more quickly as the two pirates more-or-less calmly strolled through the hallway. On one hand, Doc thought to himself, walking so boldly through a place of healing while being openly known as wanted pirates might not have been the most considerate of ideas.<p>

On the other hand, he mused as he followed Ahim, who was lost in her own quietly determined concentration, at least it was the two of them and not Marvelous or Luka. Or Marvelous _and_ Luka. He gulped, then let go of Ahim's elbow as they made their way around yet another corner and nearly ran into a bespectacled man in a white coat with a stethoscope slung around his neck.

"Oh, please excuse us," Ahim said quickly and politely with a perfect little curtsey. "Would you happen to be a doctor?" When the man nodded, she smiled and continued, "Could you please tell us everything you know?"

Doc groaned inwardly and slumped against the wall. It was going to be a long day...

* * *

><p>It was still during a class period, so the hallways were generally quiet, but a growing buzz of whispers and gossip gathered behind Luka and Joe anyway as they walked through the university building. Luka peeked back at one point to see groups of heads poking out of each doorway, watching the pirates with anxious eyes.<p>

"Let's make this quicker," she muttered towards Joe, who nodded mutely. A sign at the end of the hall caught her attention and she pointed towards it. "The faculty room's that way. You go talk to those guys, and I'll take care of this end." She grinned and gave another wave behind Joe at another classroom that was gaping at her through the doorway.

"Got it." Joe nodded and walked in the indicated direction as Luka darted into the classroom, effectively cutting off the lecture in process. She leaned up against the doorframe and waited semi-patiently for the professor to notice her existence.

It didn't take long, as the students were whispering among themselves and pointing at the yellow pirate. The teacher, an older man with graying hair and the stereotypical patched tweed coat, turned to face her with annoyance. "Excuse me, young lady, but I'm-" He cut off halfway through his planned rebuke before realizing exactly who was interrupting his class in the first place.

"Hey there, doc." Luka grinned and kicked off from the doorframe. "Let's cut to the chase – tell me what you know that's dangerous, okay?"

* * *

><p>Hunting down Liveman Yellow had been unfruitful, and the former Gao Red hadn't been able to fill them in on anything they didn't already know regarding the Zangyack empire or any other assorted dangers. Gai was wracking his brain for some other former sentai professor while Marvelous followed him with more than a little bit of frustration starting to show on his brow.<p>

This sort of hunt-and-peck, trial-and-error searching was starting to drive him a bit batty, and doing it all with the overzealous Gokai Silver was taking its toll on his patience. He knew Gai meant well, and was just trying to help in his own way, but the pirate captain would have been much happier with a seat-of-the-pants interrogation rampage through the nearest marketplace. Preferably one with lots and lots of food.

Appropriately, Marvelous' stomach growled its desire for food and Gai stopped neatly, midsentence, in his tracks. "Ah, we've been walking all day, haven't we?" he asked without expecting a reply. He looked around and noticed a pair of vending machines a block back and across the street. "I'll grab us something to snack on, be right back!" He darted across the street and left Marvelous to wait against a nearby telephone pole.

The sun had just recently set, and darkness was still settling on that particular area, so Marvelous was – although he wouldn't ever admit to it – taken a bit by surprise when a silken voice started talking in his ear. "Looking for something to do tonight?" it asked, and the pirate took a completely and totally planned step away as he spun to look at the speaker. It was a woman, wearing a rather short blue sequined dress and pulling a little white feathered wrap tightly around her arms. "Can I help?"

Marvelous regained his composure and folded his arms casually across his chest. "That depends. Are you a doctor?"

The woman smiled and leaned in close, her lips just millimeters from Marvelous' own. "For you, honey, I can be your doctor all night long."

There were words on the tip of Marvelous' tongue, something about making her tell him everything she knew, and then Gai was grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him down the sidewalk. "No, no thank you," the younger boy called back to the stunned woman. "We're good, have a good night!" He continue to pull his somewhat resisting captain along until they'd rounded a corner and were neatly out of sight.

"What'd you do that for?" Marvelous growled, yanking his arm back to its proper place at his side. "She said she was a doctor!"

Gai stared at him a moment, then leaned in close so that nobody else around could possibly hear their discussion. "She was a, a..." Words failed Gai for a moment, and he blushed as he found ones that would work. "She was a prostitute! She would have said anything if that meant you'd, you know...purchase her, um, services."

A frown creased Marvelous' face, and he leaned back to glimpse around the corner for just a second before Gai pulled him back to safety. "So she lied?"

"Of course she lied!" Gai cried out incredulously, before slapping his hands across his mouth. When he lifted them away he had lowered his voice back down to nearly a whisper. "All she had to do is give you a little...you know...and she would've told you anything you wanted. Except it wouldn't have been anything we needed."

The frown turned into a look of bemused puzzlement, and Marvelous tilted his head. "A little...you know, huh?"

Gai threw his hands up in the air and started to stalk down the sidewalk, picking up pace after confirming his captain was following behind. "Really, Marvelous...how are you a pirate and you don't know something like this?" Darkness finished falling as the street lamps all lit up, and the two crewmates headed back up towards the galleon together, one far more pensive than the other.

* * *

><p>Dinner that night was a bit on the muted side, with the crew generally discouraged from what was essentially a fruitless day. Luka and Joe hadn't found anything of note at the university they'd stalked, and Ahim and Doc had been just as unlucky at the hospital. There was a general agreement of trying different places the next day, but overall the crewmates were happiest just to get some food into their rumbling bellies.<p>

It wasn't long before Doc and Ahim were clearing away the dishes, and then everyone retreated to their own space to relax in their own way – Joe to do his restless exercises, Luka keeping watch in the crows nest, Ahim and Gai picking through some random Earth magazine at the table, and Doc working on tweaking some parts of the ship's computer. Marvelous busied himself with tossing darts at the board while thinking through his own thoughts on the day.

Rarely had one of Navi's fortunes ever been this difficult to pin down. Sure, there was the black clothes hint, that had led them somewhat astray the first try. And tiger's child hint, which they'd given up on until Ahim and Doc had stumbled upon it themselves. He threw another dart, which was only a hair off its mark, and eyed up the ship's doctor as he puttered around the computer's dash. It didn't feel right to Marvelous to think that this clue could lead to any other person than Doc himself. Who else could it be?

Time had passed more swiftly than Marvelous had realized, as Gai and Ahim were no longer in the room, and even Doc was stretching and yawning. The blond turned around midstretch and caught Marvelous' gaze, then nearly fell backwards from surprise. "Marvelous!" he cried quietly, gripping each side of the dash for support. "I didn't even notice you were still down here."

Something clicked in the pirate captain's head, and he could feel a plan forming as he spoke. "Everyone else go to bed already, huh?" he asked without asking, putting his dart and bracelet down on the table as he meandered over towards Doc.

"Aha, yeah," Doc chuckled, just a bit nervously, and took another step back towards the computer's interface. "But I think I've managed to tweak the ship's computer just enough that it might help us out tomorrow in searching for this doctor we're looking for."

Marvelous paused midstep and snorted lightly. "Why bother with the ship computer? Why not just build us a better treasure-hunting parrot?" He looked over towards Navi's usual resting place, which was suspiciously empty for this time of night. "Then we wouldn't have to waste time chasing these stupid hints."

A look of abhorrent shock spread over Doc's face and he pushed himself forward from the console. "Build another Navi? I couldn't do that!"

"Why not?" Marvelous asked with an idle shrug.

The shock turned to blustering indignation as the blond spun into a rapid tirade. "Because Navi is naturally tied in to the inherent energy matrix of this planet! That's why she's able to give us those clues towards finding the ranger keys and ultimate powers. To build a different receptacle that would harness that same energy wavelength and translate it to something understandable and usable would be not just beyond me, but beyond anyone I know!" He gave Marvelous a very solid, meaningful look and simplified. "It would be like building another Mobirates and brand new ranger key from scratch."

It had taken all of the captain's willpower to keep his eyes from glazing over during the technobabble, but it paid off as he took another step forward, leaving only inches between himself and the frustrated engineer. "Are you sure there isn't anything else we can do?" he said in a low voice, remembering the woman as she spoke in his ear on the sidewalk, and he watched as Doc's eyes grew large. "Anyone else we could ask?"

To drive the point home, Marvelous leaned in further, meeting him eye to eye and keeping his face a breath's width away from Don's. This, he mused to himself as he watched panic spread across his crewmate's face, is when Doc ought to crumble under his masterful manipulation, and if there was anything of import he was hiding from before, this would be the time that he would dutifully tell his captain all of it.

Instead, Marvelous just barely noted as it happened, the blond took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips against the captain's. They were soft, he realized – not quite as soft as a woman's, but soft enough to catch him off guard and he felt his balance waver, if just for a moment. His own eyes grew wide and he leaned forward further, grabbing Doc by the shoulders to catch his balance and crushing their lips further together in the process.

It was then that the engineer pulled back, face beaming bright red – the same color as the time the entire crew had relaxed with a bit too much rum, the captain suddenly remembered. The bright green eyes were trembling, half-filled with tears for just a moment, and then he tore himself from Marvelous' grasp entirely and pushed him away before bolting for the lower cabins.

The captain shifted his weight back, spinning slowly on one foot to lean against the ship's console as Doc's footsteps faded into the depths of the galleon. The feel of the engineer's lips still lingered against Marvelous', and he idly raised two fingers to touch his mouth as his mind drifted back to just a moment before, not once noticing the small light that blinked out from the interface behind him.

He was fairly certain that wasn't how interrogations were supposed to go.


	2. Curiosity

The tingle was still there, the feather's touch that lingered against Marvelous' lips as he carefully stalked through the galleon's halls. It had been unexpected, at least for him, and he'd never have guessed that the quiet engineer's interests had laid in his direction. But then again, he couldn't deny that he'd liked the kiss, which bothered him far more than he would have guessed.

Inwardly, he was torn. Part of him wanted to rip into Doc for catching him off-guard like that, for daring to make a mockery of what was supposed to be a very serious sort of interrogation. Marvelous did not appreciate being made a fool, and it was just Doc's luck that nobody had been there to witness it.

The other part of him was reveling in the tingle on his lips, remembering the shudder that rippled through the blond man's body as Marvelous had inadvertently pulled him closer, clinging to the memory of Doc's quick gasp as he'd pulled away. No matter how angry or embarrassed Marvelous was, he wanted to experience those feelings again. And often.

"Tch," he muttered to himself, and turned smartly on his heel. His initial plan had been to try consulting Joe for advice – the former soldier had alluded to having this sort of a relationship in his past – but a burst of pride changed his direction. He wasn't just Marvelous – he was _Captain_ Marvelous, and he could handle these sorts of things himself, or take the ship down trying.

Doc's room lay at the end of the hallway, right next to the secondary engine room and directly underneath the ship's galley. He'd chosen it for its location and the convenience it afforded him, even if that meant the room itself was slightly larger than the broom closet. Marvelous stood outside the door, remembering the room's interior after Doc had moved in. There would be a desk against the left wall, a chest of drawers at the back, and a single twin bed on the right.

The image of the bed solidified in Marvelous' mind, this time with the sheets mussed up and the blond bent over the edge, pleading in that voice of his to go easy, please be gentle-

He felt himself strain against the confines of his pants and twisted his eyes shut, groaning quietly. That was, he noted, more unexpected than usual. At the same time his determination rose and he knocked once, twice, three times with a single clenched fist.

There was a rustling sound inside, although of sheets or just general bustling Marvelous couldn't be sure. But it was followed by a quiet whimper, then silence.

The captain gritted his teeth. "Doc, we need to talk," he said, trying to keep his voice loud enough to be heard through the door without being too audible down the hallway as well. "I don't want to wait on this."

The rustling came again, this time closer to the door, and Marvelous saw in his mind's eye the terrified blond wrapped in bedsheets and huddling down next to the door. "Do we...do we really need to talk?" came Doc's voice, scared and muffled by the door. "It could have...you know...just not happened."

The suggestion twisted something oddly close to the captain's heart, and he grimaced at the far wall. "Do you...want it to have not happened?" he asked as quietly and evenly as he could manage.

Silence followed, and stretched so long that he was worried the engineer had responded and he just hadn't heard. And then, as if just above a whisper, he heard it: "No."

That something quickly untwisted, and Marvelous found himself filled with the urge to punch the wall with glee. But he caught hold of that urge as he realized it was far more likely to rattle Doc than encourage him, and instead sat on the floor and folded his legs underneath him. "Then open the door, and let's talk about this properly, yeah?"

"No, not yet," Doc swiftly replied, panic tinting the edge of his voice, and the captain wondered if the blond had seen through his plan of skipping the talk and going straight to the bed. "If...if this is something I...I mean, we...are going to do, I don't..." His voice trailed off and he mumbled something incomprehensible, although Marvelous had a decent guess at what he'd said.

"You don't want it to change things, do you?" The engineer murmured his agreement and the captain sighed, tilting his head back to rest against the wooden door. "It can't work that way, Doc," he said, toning down his exasperation as much as possible. "Things will always change." He thought of the tingle on his lips, already so far gone that the ghost of it barely remained. "Things have already changed. Now we just get to decide how much."

Old memories resurfaced, memories Marvelous had tried a million times to shove down and out of existence, but they always managed to pop back up again whenever he least wanted them. For a moment his poker face twisted into a pained sneer, until he shut his eyes and thudded his head lightly against the door to drive the thoughts away.

"I've...never done this, you know, sort of thing before," Doc continued quietly, not even noticing the sound of Marvelous' head against the wood. "I don't think I'll...exactly know what I'm doing."

The memories shot up again, and the captain nearly growled as he forced them back down and locked them away in the dark corners of his mind. "You'll learn," he replied, forcing calm into his voice. "You're the smartest person I know."

He thought he heard the engineer puff up a bit at that, and he commended himself on finding what was obviously the right answer to that bit of insecurity. "So, the door...?"

"The others," Doc said at the same time, apparently pouring out all his fears at once. "How...do you think they'd feel?"

Marvelous covered his face with one hand, moving it just enough out of the way to respond properly. "They don't have to know. Not if you don't want them to." He pulled his hand away and frowned at the floor as he thought of something. "But I won't lie to my crew." The memories made a valiant effort against the lock, but it held, and Marvelous was able to keep his cool. "And you shouldn't either."

Silence fell and held for another long moment, letting the gentle murmur of the ship's engines fill the quiet air around them. Marvelous could feel the slight vibrations in the floor and the wooden door, and he found himself smiling lightly at the thought that the shy engineer had to be sharing that same experience, however insignificant it may be.

Then, without any sort of fanfare, he heard rustling on the other side of the door and it opened, creaking slowly on its hinges, to reveal a flustered Doc wrapped in green plaid bedsheets. The blond's eyes were cast towards the floor, but he lifted them as high as Marvelous' pendant to say, "I'm not ready to tell them. Not yet."

"Then we won't," the captain said without hesitation, and took the opportunity to get his shoulder inside the doorway. His body was nearly flush with Doc's, and he felt his breath catch as the blond lifted his eyes to look at his in surprise. For a brief second he worried that he'd moved too quickly, that his presence was unwelcome – but then he realized that the engineer was staunchly not moving away, and in fact, he could feel the light brush of Doc's fingers against his hip.

The wide eyes fluttered away, then back, but only rising as far as the captain's chin this time. "Will you..." he said quietly, in a voice that reminded Marvelous of all those hours desperately trying to teach the engineer how to fight, how to defend himself, only to see him leave himself open and vulnerable each time. "...come in?"

A different sort of smirk spread across the captain's lips. "Of course," he murmured, and closed the door behind them.

* * *

><p>The sun had nearly risen, and it had taken all of Marvelous' willpower to pry himself out of the bed and tug his boots back onto his feet. He knew if he made a fuss, he'd find it even more difficult to leave, so he grabbed his coat and cast one last look back towards the blond sleeping soundly on the bed. Then, as quietly as possible, he opened the door and stepped back into the galleon's hallway.<p>

Light was beginning to seep in through the porthole windows, but the ship remained as quiet as it ought to be, and Marvelous took a moment to stretch thoroughly before sliding his coat back onto his arms. He felt the weight of leadership rest itself on his shoulders along with the heavy fabric, and he was almost ready to go back to being captain when he noticed a shape at the other end of the hall. He turned to look and froze in place at the sight.

Joe stood, not even twenty feet away, at the door of his own cabin room. He'd apparently been in the middle of closing his own door when the captain's entrance had unintentionally interrupted, and he was staring at Marvelous with a mixed look of guilt and disbelief. For a very long moment, the two friends maintained eye contact while each figured out how to react.

Finally, Joe looked away and lifted one hand to hold his forehead. "Must've been my imagination," he said, and headed down the hallway towards the common room, likely for his morning exercises.

The captain relaxed, straightening the lapels of his coat and walking down the hallway, somewhat calmed by the smirk that had tugged at the corner of Joe's mouth as the young man had walked away.

Secrets didn't last long on a pirate ship, anyway.


	3. Opportunity

It wasn't long before noon when Marvelous finally meandered from his room and up the stairs into the galleon's common hall, stretching lazily as he walked along. He'd fallen asleep almost before he'd hit the pillow that morning, and while he'd only had a few hours sleep, he wasn't about to admit that to the rest of the crew.

Well, most of the crew, he amended after seeing the knowing smirk Joe shot him the moment he walked in the room. But his first mate quickly went back to his situps, and the resulting morning greeting from nearly everyone else assured him that the quote-unquote secret was still just that.

Unconsciously his gaze turned towards the door to the galley, partly out of morning hunger, but also out of sheer curiosity for what Doc's response might be. Gai was setting the table for their usual late-breakfast-slash-early-lunch, and grinning at him with his usual maniacal energy, but Marvelous found himself about to shove the grinning boy's face aside before realizing he only wanted to do so to see his engineer's smiling face.

Of course, he was already halfway there, so he followed through by shoving Gai's face to the side and spinning himself down into his chair, leaning back to prop his feet up on the table and just barely missing the place setting in the process. "Did I miss anything good?" he asked as casually as possible, distracting himself from staring openly at the galley door.

Joe more or less ignored the question, while Ahim silently shook her head and Luka just kept on reading the magazine she'd been paging through. Even Gai shrugged as he went back to placing silverware around all the table settings. "Pretty much quiet all morning," he said as he rounded the corner. "Although Don-san overslept, that's why lunch is late."

Marvelous' stomach grumbled at the mention of food, so he was pretty sure the smirk that twisted the corner of his mouth was far more likely to be attributed to his eagerness to eat, and not thoughts of the ship's cook. "Oi, I thought I was hungrier than usual," he grumbled through the grin. "Doc! Hurry up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," came the engineer's harried response as he stumbled through the galley door, hands full with a heaping plate of pancakes. "Ahim-san, could you please bring out the bacon? And Gai, grab the scrambled eggs." He leaned over the table, shoved Marvelous' feet unceremoniously off the edge, and carefully set the plate in the center. Seemingly from nowhere he produced butter, syrup, and a small shaker of powdered sugar, and within another minute the table was completely set for the meal. "There you go – all ready!"

There was a clamor of chairs and dishes as everyone dove hungrily into the pile of pancakes, forks and knives eagerly at the ready. Doc found his way around the table and sat down before reaching over to pile pancakes onto his own plate.

"Marvelous-san," came Ahim's voice, cautious and somewhat confused from across the table, "is there something the matter?" She gestured gently at his still-empty plate, subtly enough that none of the other crew members seemed to notice.

The captain snapped away from his thoughts and looked at the princess with what he hoped was a knowing glint in his eye. "I'm just so hungry I forgot to eat," he said, and gave her a grin before grabbing his own lion's share of the pancakes from the main platter. Luka sputtered a bit in protest, but other than that there were no complaints, not even from the chef himself.

Marvelous coated his pancakes with butter and syrup, then ate vigorously while mulling things over in his head. He was fine with keeping everything quiet, at least for now, but the almost complete lack of any sort of recognition from the engineer was disappointing, almost frustrating. He'd hoped for a blush, or a stammer, a smirk or a hidden grin, but if anything, this morning's meal had less interaction between the two of them than normal. For a moment he wondered if that casual shove earlier was all he'd see that morning.

His eyes had unconsciously wandered over to the blond while he thought, still shoving food happily into his mouth. The rest of the crew were caught up in eating as well, so they missed Doc's eyes darting over to meet Marvelous', and the slow, bashful grin that spread over the engineer's face before shyly disappearing with a bite of over-sugared pancake.

Marvelous found his own grin spreading even wider, the weight off his shoulders lifted so much that he didn't even mind when Ahim scolded him for chewing with his mouth open.

* * *

><p>It took three sets of hands – Doc's, Luka's, and Gai's – to hold down Navi long enough for Marvelous to get a straight answer out of her. "Listen here, bird," the captain said, scowling over his crossed arms at the pinned robot, "either help us out with the last hint or give us a new one."<p>

Navi frantically shook her head, a feat in and of itself with six hands immobilizing her. "That's all there is! You're going to have to look harder."

Ahim stepped forward, her hands demurely clasped in front of her as she leaned down to give Navi a pleading look. "Are you sure there is nothing more you can say that will guide us? We spent the whole of yesterday searching, but to no avail."

Again the robot tried to flap her wings, but she had just enough purchase to shake off Doc and send him sprawling across the floor. The resulting imbalance threw Luka and Gai off-guard and Navi tore free and flew around the cabin. "One more day, I'm sure you'll get it this time!" she squawked frantically, then disappeared through the door before Joe could get knock her back down.

"Dammit!" Marvelous growled, then turned to kick the central pillar angrily. Something glimmered in his eye and he stopped just before impact to look back at his part-curious, part-frustrated crew. "Okay. Fine. One more day of searching before we rip apart the bird."

Luka groaned and sat down on the edge of the coffee table. "Not another day in those stuffy schools."

The captain shook his head, something else obviously on his mind. "Luka, Ahim, the two of you head down to a different hospital. Joe," he began and looked towards his first mate.

Joe met Marvelous' eyes for a moment, then sighed and looked away. "Got it. We'll handle the stuffy schools," he said as he grabbed an unsuspecting Gai by the shoulder and dragged him towards the door.

"Eh?" Gai squeaked as he was dragged along. Luka and Ahim were already heading towards the door, but Marvelous seemed to be smirking as Doc sat there looking bewildered. "What about you two?" he asked, gesturing as they neared the stairs.

Marvelous nodded his head towards the engineer and smiled. "He's been working on the scanner," he said with all the confidence in the world. "So we'll stay behind and see what that comes up with."

This was almost fine with Gai, except for one small bit which he shouted out as Joe dragged him through the door. "But...that's not fair!"

"He is the captain," Ahim said quietly as they left.

"Even if he is a smug jerk about it sometimes," Luka agreed.

Gai whimpered, and then they were gone.

* * *

><p>For some reason, it was a calm and quiet day at the hospital Ahim and Luka found themselves exploring. It was the sister hospital to the one Ahim had visited the day before, and she felt fairly confident that they would be able to move about with ease, if not find the answer they'd been looking for in the first place. The waiting room was pleasantly empty, something that Luka attributed to the fact that it had been several days since the last Zangyack attack.<p>

Still, prowling about the hallways caused the same reaction as before, with nurses and other civilians regarding them with a mixture of curiosity and outright fear. It was something that bothered Ahim deeply, although Luka was far more comfortable moving around in public when other people worked to stay out of her way. The poised princess found herself musing over the potential difficulties of having such a reputation when a voice calling out stopped her right before she had rounded a corner.

Ahim turned, the perfect picture of politeness, to face a young doctor running up the hallway towards the two of them. "Who's this guy?" Luka growled while stepping protectively in front of Ahim, but as the man got closer, Ahim gently pushed her comrade aside.

"The nice doctor I met yesterday," she said, having recognized him as the man she'd nearly run into in the hallway the day before. "Is there something we can help you with?"

* * *

><p>"Hey. Gai."<p>

Joe's words were somewhat friendly in their own right, but the flat tone of his voice indicated a lot more annoyance than Gai would have expected from the quiet first mate. In fact, if he thought about it a bit more, he'd wonder if there was something else that was nagging at Joe. But a mission was a mission, and Gai was sure that this university would get them actual results – whatever those results might be.

At any rate, he stopped just ten feet short of the front gate to the campus and turned back to face the near-scowling ex-soldier with a wide grin. "Yes!"

"This is the same place Luka and I visited yesterday."

The words sunk in and Gai's face fell. "Oh." Then his mind whirled around and around trying to think of another university that wasn't too far that they could visit and therefore not waste their entire day. When he was about halfway through plotting a route to a college he'd heard about his cousin attending, there was a tapping at his shoulder that pulled him from his planning and back to the real world.

"Excuse me," said an older professor, obviously a weathered teacher if one judged by the patches on the elbows of his jacket, "but might you be the pirates? The ones who were going around yesterday?"

Gai was ready to respond with extreme enthusiasm when Joe took the several steps forward to face the professor head-on. "You were the one Luka accosted," he pointed out, then pushed Gai just a tiny bit away. "What do you want with us?"

The older man swallowed nervously, then raised his briefcase to just below eye-level. "I think I have something you might be interested in."

* * *

><p>"...so instead of a keyword-based system, which certainly has its strengths when it comes to searching for something in particular, I've retooled part of the scanner to work more categorically. So instead of looking for, say, '<em>hakase<em>', '_sentai_', and '_knowledge_', I'm instead narrowing down the search field to only people with registered doctorates. From there on we can narrow the field further by including the search terms from before and hopefully end up with a few leads, or, ideally, just one."

Doc's face was bright and flushed, his eyes sparkling with a love of knowledge that Marvelous had seen a hundred times before. But never before did he remember appreciating that glimmer as much as he did now. The engineer was alternating between futzing around with the computer and turning to ramble at Marvelous ineffectively – granted, it was only ineffective because the captain barely understood a word he was saying, but still – with an energy that made Marvelous wonder if Doc might have gone a bit overboard with the sugar on his pancakes that morning.

At the same time, he was getting a fairly good number of glances at the engineer's khaki-clad posterior, which was leading to quite a few rambling thoughts of his own.

Acting on impulse, Marvelous stood and walked up behind the blond, pressing his chest flush against Doc's back and sliding his arms around the smaller man's waist. "So then," he rumbled quietly against the engineer's ear, smiling as his words elicited a shudder through Doc's body. "Is there anything you need to be doing for the search right now?"

Doc took a slow, shuddering breath, then moved his hands away from the console controls so as to avoid accidentally hitting something that shouldn't be switched at that moment. "Not...necessarily," he admitted as he lowered his eyes. "Just waiting for the search to complete."

Those were the words Marvelous was hoping to hear. "Then it sounds like we have some time to kill, don't we?" Keeping one arm locked tightly above Doc's hips, he let the other hand slide upwards and start to unfasten the buttons on the engineer's shirt, one at a time. After the third he slipped his fingers through the opening and began to lazily trace patterns on the undershirt beneath.

Another shiver ran through Doc's body and Marvelous could feel the blond's balance waver, just enough that he felt justified in pulling him in even closer to keep him balanced. Then there was a stillness, a pause, long enough that Marvelous felt his confidence hiccup, a feeling that he did not enjoy in the least.

"What is it?" he asked slowly, pulling his hand out from inside the plaid shirt and wrapping it back around Doc's waist. "What's wrong?"

Soft blond curls brushed against Marvelous' cheek as Doc shook his head. "Nothing...I mean, nothing that should really matter."

The words put the captain's face into a scowl and he turned the engineer to face him properly. Doc's eyes were lowered to the floor, not daring to look Marvelous in the eye. "That's bull. Tell me what's wrong."

Again Doc shook his head while keeping his eyes well averted. "It's just...like I said last night. I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't...I don't want to mess it up."

Marvelous felt his eyebrow twitch, irritated more at Doc's lack of self-confidence than the lack of inappropriate activities taking place at that exact moment. "Then don't worry about that," he said slowly, forcing himself to stay cheerful to encourage his shy crewmate. "And let me take care of things."

The captain ducked his head down as he slowly lowered himself to his knees, kissing his way down the half-unbuttoned shirt as he went. As a result he completely missed the look of confusion that spread across Doc's face, then faded into disbelief, and was ultimately replaced with utter shock as Marvelous went about unbuckling the engineer's belt.

"Ma...Marvelous-san," Doc gasped. His knees shook and he caught the edge of the control console to keep himself upright as his captain went about pulling the khakis down to the floor. They puddled around his ankles, along with his boxers, and the blond let out a heady moan as Marvelous' hand wrapped itself gently around his cock and began to stroke.

He could tell that Doc was standing on unstable legs at best, so Marvelous reached up with his other hand and tugged on the plaid shirttails, pulling the younger man down slowly until he was sitting on the floor with his back against the console, still gripping the sides of the column while desperately trying to keep his eyes properly open to watch his captain in action. The valiant effort ended when Marvelous, satisfied enough with their current arrangement, slipped his mouth over the tip of Doc's trembling arousal.

The engineer let out a small, stifled cry, his eyes fluttering shut and head falling back to rest against the support column. Marvelous had to fight back a smirking grin while he slid his lips up and down around the shaft, alternating between a slight twist and taking the head all the way to the back of his throat. He wasn't in the best position to watch the reactions on Doc's face, unfortunately, but the whimpering noises the blond was making was more than enough to keep him going.

It wasn't very long at all before Marvelous could feel the telltale tensing in Doc's legs, and he found himself caught in a brief hesitation that lasted maybe half a breath before the engineer's hand wound itself in Marvelous' dark hair, keeping him in place and communicating without words exactly what he needed to say: _whatever you do, don't stop_. This time the captain couldn't contain his grin as he picked up his pace.

"Ma...Ma...Marvelous!" The cry rang throughout the main hall, echoing off the wooden beams as Doc lost himself in his climax, slumping further to the floor as Marvelous neatly finished the job. He kept one hand resting gently on the blond's thigh while he finished swallowing, then waited another moment before rising to his knees and wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve. He looked to the engineer, who was only barely holding himself anything near upright against the column, and smirked.

As if suddenly possessed, Doc gathered himself and sat forward, grabbing Marvelous by the front panels of his vest and pulling them together until their lips were crushing with bruising force. The sudden mix of pleasure and pain took Marvelous by surprise and he almost bolted, until the twisting heat of his own arousal urged him more and more forward, grabbing the smaller man around the waist and pulling him close underneath him.

For a moment they broke off the kiss, both gasping for air in the suddenly stifling hot cabin, and it was then that they heard the echo of a door slamming shut.

* * *

><p>"Ahim-san, Luka-san!" The two girls had boarded the galleon at the same time as Joe and Gai, and the cabin boy was eager to relay their good news. "Did you two also have some good luck?"<p>

Ahim nodded happily, although Luka looked far less enthused at their news. "Yes, and it took very little time. I assume you found something as well?"

Sighing, Joe held the next door open for the group as they traveled towards the galleon's main room. "Yeah. Nothing about an Ultimate Power, though."

"But definitely interesting!" Gai nearly skipped ahead of the rest, turning smartly as he rounded the corner to the stairs. "I wonder if the others found something too?"

The first mate held his tongue as the four of them climbed the stairs into the main cabin. His eyes quickly scanned the room, looking for some evidence of having barged in at the wrong time, and eventually settled on Marvelous himself, looking extremely disheveled but asleep, alone, on the couch.

"Oi!" muttered Luka, and the thief marched over and began to aim a smack at the top of their captain's head. "Hard at work, huh?"

"Hey, uh, give him a break," came Doc's voice as he appeared from behind the central pillar, nervously fidgeting with his tie. "He said, uh, he was having trouble sleeping last night, so I told him he could nap while the computer searched." He gestured to the computer screen, where the search program was still trying to find something that matched all the parameters the engineer had given it earlier.

Luka looked up at the screen, frowned, and slowly lowered her hand. "Still doesn't seem fair," she grumbled half-heartedly, but moved away from the couch.

"A-anyway," Doc continued, walking over to place himself between the captain and the rest of the crew, "did you guys find something? Is that why you're back?"

Gai nodded, and when he spoke his voice was appropriately lowered so as not to disturb the captain's sleep. "Yeah, but maybe we should wait until Marvelous-san is awake?"

"I agree, that would be best," Ahim said quickly, then clapped her hands lightly. "Why don't I go make us some tea while we wait?" When nobody disagreed, she disappeared off into the galley and the group as a whole began to relax.

While everyone bustled about busying themselves with things that weren't Marvelous- or search-related, Joe contented himself with leaning against the far wall and wondering when – or even, if – he should bother telling the flustered engineer that his fly was still down.


	4. Relaxation

"We're back!"

Gai's boisterous voice rang through the galleon as he and Ahim marched their way into the common room, each struggling with two large paper bags filled with groceries for the crew.

"What took you so long?" Luka asked as she shuffled a deck of cards for yet another game of solitaire.

Taking a moment first to set his bags down on the table, Gai then reached to nervously scratch at the back of his neck. "Ah, well, you see-"

Ahim stepped forward and set her bags down as well before folding her hands neatly across the front of her ruffled dress. "I have good news for everyone," she said earnestly, her smile beaming from one cabin to the other. Marvelous walked over from the control console, where he'd been looking at something on the screen, Joe paused his situps, and even Doc took a break from rearranging the fridge to come out and hear Ahim's announcement. "We will be taking a trip to a local hot spring!" the former princess said joyfully, and smiled at each crew member in turn while waiting for their reactions.

"A hot spring?" Doc was the first one to respond, fiddling anxiously with the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. "What's the point of that?" Ahim opened her mouth to answer, but it was Marvelous who cut her off with his own explanation.

"Relaxation," the captain said simply, his arms folded and expression set to one of vague approval.

There was a general murmur of understanding from the crew as their minds flew to recent events. It hadn't been that long ago when Basco had thoroughly trounced the entire lot of them. Not only had the privateer laid them out flat, he'd made it perfectly clear that he was only letting them live so that his own task of collecting the ultimate powers would be that much easier. After all, once the Gokaiger had acquired them all, Basco would just have to waltz in and defeat them again. The physical wounds they had suffered that day were nothing compared to the damage done to their pride.

And even though Doc had managed to create something as powerful as the Gokai Galleon Buster, it was still a painful reminder that their own personal power was falling short of what was actually needed to keep up their way of life. If anything was needed now, just after they'd pulled off the last of their bandages, it was a chance to properly relax.

Joe nodded first, followed by Luka, Doc, and eventually Gai, although his had a nervous smile still attached. "We could all use a bit of a vacation," Ahim said simply, voicing what was going through each and every one of their heads, and most of the anxiety in the room disappeared. One by one the crew scattered again, with Doc starting to unload the four full bags of groceries into the galley.

Idly shuffling through the cards, Luka threw a quick look over at Gai. "How'd this come about, anyway?"

"There was a very nice man running a booth at the supermarket," Ahim answered promptly. "I gave him my tickets from buying the groceries and he let me spin a little box."

Doc paused in mid-load and nodded. "The lottery booth. I've seen those before." Behind him, Gai was squinching his face shut in preparation for what was coming next. "But those sorts of trips are usually the grand prize! And you got it in one spin?"

The princess shook her head demurely. "The thirty-seventh."

Silence hit the room like a brick wall as nearly every single crew member fumbled what they were doing, and Gai figured that it was the best time as any to follow up. "So...we need a bit of help bringing up the other twenty bags of groceries."

* * *

><p>The galleon was safely anchored to the bottom of a disused quarry on the other side of the mountain, and the crew disembarked and hiked the last mile to the secluded hot spring and its attached hotel. There was a conveniently cleared path that wound around from the quarry through a fairly gorgeous section of forest, which eventually became a stone-cobbled path before dumping them on the front porch of the hotel itself.<p>

Ahim took care of checking the group in, and it wasn't long before the crew was shown to the two rooms they had reserved for them to occupy during their stay. It was quickly decided that Luka and Ahim, for the sake of propriety, would have their own room, and that the four boys would share one amongst themselves. Only once futons were properly appropriated between the rooms did they start to truly settle in.

"See, this is what we really needed," Marvelous said with a confident grin as he passed out the hotel-provided yukata to each of the other boys in the room. "Quiet time spent somewhere far away from everywhere."

Gai made a strained little sound as he unfolded his yukata, a simple white affair adorned with light gray cranes. "I was excited about this at first," he said slowly, inspecting the garment as an excuse to keep his eyes busy elsewhere. "But I've been sorta wondering if it's a good idea to take a vacation when the Zangyack are still out there, you know?"

Joe shrugged out of his blue jacket and walked over to hang it up neatly on the rack by the door. "If something that bad happens, we can always leave," he said with simple confidence. "Until then, we can relax a bit."

The rest of the room nodded in agreement once before they busied themselves with dressing into their yukata. Doc ducked into the closet, pink tinging the tops of his cheeks as he hid himself while changing clothes. While the look hadn't been particularly exclusive, Marvelous felt a small warm flutter in thinking that it had been meant especially for him.

There hadn't been very much between them as of late. Apparently after the afternoon spent searching alone together, Joe had said something oblique enough to frighten Doc away from any intimate moments for nearly three days. At that point they simply didn't have time, and then after the brutal beatdown from Basco the entire crew had spent all of their time in the common room, reassuring themselves in each other's company.

Marvelous was of the opinion that crew camaraderie was all very well and good, and even desirable, but it would have been damn more convenient to have had some time to get his shy engineer alone for even a short snog or seven. Perhaps this brief vacation would relax the entire crew enough to get things at least partially back to normal.

As the captain was fiddling with the tie around his waist, he noticed that his first mate was giving him a vaguely odd look. He paused long enough to match Joe's gaze, the two friends regarding each other silently until the message was properly conveyed. Grinning, Marvelous finished tying the belt and strode over to place a reassuring hand on Joe's shoulder. "Of course I am," he said aloud, knowing full well that nothing else in their conversation had been voiced. "How could I not?"

Gai frowned in confusion from the other side of the room. "How could you not what?" The words were barely out before Doc stumbled out from the closet, dressed in a light green yukata with his street clothes folded neatly in his arms.

"It's nothing," Joe said, shaking his head briefly before leaving the room. Gai followed, fumbling with the belt as he went through the door, and Doc dumped the clothes in the corner before tagging along. Marvelous left last, watching his crew walk in front of him, still grinning his cheshire smile all the way to the hot spring.

* * *

><p>The hot spring is divided into two sections, Gai explained to the crew, to observe the modern decency of men and women bathing separately. Marvelous made a smart remark about the amount of steam obscuring any real vision anyway, before untying his yukata and striding out into the steaming water fully naked. Gai nearly had to scrape his jaw up from the floor before Joe followed suit, although with much more decorum than the overeager pirate captain had displayed. Back in the changing room, Gai carefully showed Doc how to tie the towel properly around his waist before the two more modest members joined the rest in the water.<p>

It didn't take long for the hot water to take effect, and soon any conversation the four young men had in mind faded into relaxed sighs and bubbles just under the surface.

Marvelous had propped himself up against a rock in one corner of the spring, smoothly shaped just right to comfortably support his shoulders, and was lazily watching the steam rise up and into the early evening sky. His stomach rumbled lightly and he thought of food, and then his eye caught sight of a blond shock of curls smiling happily across the spring, and his thoughts turned to much naughtier things.

It was at that point that Gai was suddenly beside him, closer than the captain would have ever expected of the earthling, although it was obvious that Gai was taking great care to not cross any societal boundaries between the two of them. "Marvelous-san," the younger boy said in a conspiratorial voice, "how familiar are you with hot springs trips?"

Marvelous let himself slide a bit lower into the water and glared up at Gai for a long, weighty moment. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Gai shook his head in what he must have believed to be a discreet manner. "No, I mean...what happens on hot springs trips. You know...typically."

Recent thoughts of activities with the ship's engineer came to mind and Marvelous raised one eyebrow as far as it would go. "What are you saying, Gai?"

"These sorts of trips," Gai continued on in his quiet voice, completely oblivious to how badly he had just been misunderstood. "Are a classic starting point for relationships." He accompanied this with a sly smile and a few winks, and Marvelous wondered if Doc's so-called secret had actually ever been safe at all. But before he could find the right words to breach the subject, Gai had given him a pat on his shoulder and retreated back towards the entrance to the spring, leaving the captain alone with his now-muddled thoughts.

* * *

><p>The moon was high in the sky, sitting at a neat crescent well past midnight when Marvelous rolled out of his futon and onto the tatami floor. Taking care not to make too much noise, he crept to his feet and walked out of the hotel room and down the hallway to the large balcony that overlooked the mountainside. The air was crisp, but not cold, and the night was clear enough that he could see all the way down the mountain and into the city below.<p>

He leaned against the railing and looked out into the distance, skimming over the skyline briefly before turning his eyes back to the stars. For as much time as he'd spent watching and navigating by the stars, it was always disturbingly odd to see them from the surface of a planet, any planet, and Earth was no exception. The angles were wrong, the perception skewed, and it tended to knock him just as far off balance as a well-placed right hook.

The railing steadied him, however, and his mind was free to wander to other thoughts, like the words Gai had spoken in the hot spring earlier that day. Marvelous didn't find himself as concerned with the stability of their 'secret', as it were, as much as he mused over Gai's actual wording. Sure, he'd given his activities with the ship's engineer plenty of thought, ideally when no one else was looking and could see the predatory grin he knew would spread across his face, but he'd never really stopped to think about what all of it meant. Gai had given a name to it all, a 'relationship', and it had knocked Marvelous off guard as badly as the stars did.

Up until this point, the only thing on Marvelous' mind, when it had come to encounters between him and Doc, was that it was fun and he certainly didn't mind the activity. If the opportunity arose for the two of them to be more open about things, he was absolutely sure he'd scandalize the shy blond (and likely the rest of the crew) with his teasing advances. He even had a few planned away, should the time come.

But classifying the whole thing as a 'relationship' was a step he wasn't sure he was ready to take. It meant time and consideration outside of lustful tumbles, and feelings and emotions he wasn't quite prepared handle again. It meant responsibility, both to himself and to his partner. It meant taking something seriously, something that wasn't fighting or hunting for treasure.

Marvelous snorted to himself at that last thought. He knew that there were people out there who would happily classify 'relationships' as treasures to hunt endlessly for. He just didn't think he was one of them.

A small, dark shape flitted briefly across the moon, and Marvelous heard the soft sound of the balcony door being slid aside, followed by a handful of timid, slippered footsteps. Rather than turn around and look, he let his head hang loosely from his neck and waited for the visitor to say the first word.

"Can't sleep?" Doc's voice was quiet enough that it nearly blended in with the ambient sounds of nighttime, the perfect volume to avoid being overheard by anyone who wasn't standing on the balcony with them.

Marvelous shook his head from side to side. "Can't you?"

The door slid shut as softly as it had opened. "I heard you get up."

"Well, I'm fine." The words came out far more harshly than he had intended, and he winced at the thought of hurt spreading across Doc's face as a result. "I mean, no need to worry."

The younger man shuffled forward and placed his hands on the railing, holding it gingerly as he looked up at the crescent moon. "You can talk to me, if you want," Doc said, a bit of his optimism creeping into his voice. "I'm happy to listen."

Marvelous looked over to the pale, slender hands as they fidgeted lightly with the wood of the railing. The engineer spent enough time working on the ship and other mechanics that his fingers should be calloused and rough, but in the moonlight they seemed to be as soft as the skin on the blond's cheek. Curious, he tested this theory, reaching out with one hand and placing it over Doc's and stroking the skin lightly with his thumb.

"It's soft," he said and, not at all bothering to elaborate, grabbed hold of the hand to pull Doc smartly into his arms. The engineer's eyes grew wide but he complied, and soon Marvelous found himself nibbling lightly at the skin of Doc's neck, reigning back the urge to leave little bruises as he worked his way up higher.

Little gasps came from Doc's mouth, and as Marvelous heard them he felt his more troublesome thoughts drifting away, leaving him in comfortable bliss. His hands, initially wrapped around the blond's small waist, slid around to find the open folds of the green yukata and slipped underneath to dance across Doc's stomach.

Doc responded with a choked breath and wrapped his arms around Marvelous' hips, pulling the captain closer as he buried his face in the soft black hair behind Marvelous' right ear. The older man felt something in the pit of his stomach catch fire, and he gave a rumbling groan and pushed himself as close to the blond as he could manage, pressing together bits of exposed skin around the collars of their yukata. The engineer's breath was hot against the side of his head, and he felt his own breath hitch as Doc began to nibble his way up the outer rim of his ear.

Everything was fine, everything was perfect, everything was exactly as it should have been until the blond bit down across the top of his ear. It should have felt wonderful, should have been sent shivers through his entire body, but all he felt was regret weighing down on his lungs, crushing the breath from him, and he pulled away and shoved Doc aside in the same motion. His vision went dark and he clung to the railing desperately, depending on it to keep him standing and save him at least a little bit of dignity.

Marvelous shut his eyes and saw the face behind his eyelids, alternating between soft smiles, throes of ecstasy, and that bitter smirk that had haunted him for years. The picture was far too clear now, and for a moment he felt sick.

He never heard any sound of his crewmate hitting the wooden floor and somehow understood that it meant he hadn't hurt him too badly. But there was too little sound, a lack of any sort of reaction, that made his heart grow even icier from the thought of what had just happened. For a moment he contemplated raising his head, holding Doc tight, and apologizing, and then his stomach roiled again and the idea fled his mind.

Seconds passed, maybe even minutes, and then the soft voice came again, gentle and far more understanding than it had any right to be. "It's him, isn't it?" Doc asked quietly. "Basco."

Marvelous let his forehead fall to the railing with a light thump. "...it's stupid. I'm stupid."

The pale hands crept onto the railing again, although this time they were wringing themselves worriedly as Doc spoke. "I wouldn't say that. It's obvious he meant a lot to you."

A flash of rage rolled through Marvelous and he slammed his hands angrily against the railing. "He shouldn't have! I should never have trusted him, and I'm an idiot for ever believing a word that came out of that bastard's lying mouth!" Pain shot up from his palms and he grimaced, but focusing on the pain helped him keep the tears at bay, and that was far more important to him at the moment.

"You couldn't have known," Doc continued stubbornly, letting go of his hands to grip at the railing instead. "That's what betrayal is. Not knowing you can't trust someone until it actually happens."

A tremor shook at each of Marvelous' knees and he let his grip on the railing slide as he sank further down towards the floor of the balcony. "I should've known better," he said weakly, the words sounding as feeble to his own ears as they felt in his head. "Maybe then...AkaRed..."

Warm hands appeared at his shoulder and hip, steadying at first before creeping around his midsection, pulling him gently backwards to lean against the blond's kneeling form. His first impulse was to push away, pry himself upwards and stand proudly on his own two feet, but that urge dissolved when he felt the warmth of Doc's cheek pressed against his own. For the first time in far too many years, Marvelous felt comfortable, even safe, cradled in somebody else's arms.

Doc lowered the two of them gently to the floor, the engineer's back against the railing for support, and the two clung together tightly as the captain finally began to cry.

* * *

><p>It was quiet out in the clearing Joe had found, and that had made it perfect for a refreshing bout of training early in the morning. At least, it had been early in the morning when he'd first started going through his paces, practicing each form with the graceful ease that comes naturally after years of concentrated training. There was always a tiny voice in the back of his mind, asking him if he really needed that extra bit of practice, if there was anything he could really stand to gain from it, especially given how often the pirate crew ended up fighting on the Earth's surface.<p>

But he always shoved that voice down and trained anyhow, knowing that he had nothing to lose from the practice except time. And with the entire crew laying back and relaxing in the same place, time was something he finally had to spare. So when the sun began to beat down on the back of his neck, making it impossible to ignore the sweat that was rolling down underneath his shirt, he realized that it was likely well past noon and perhaps time to find himself something to eat.

The quieter sounds of civilization began to grow as Joe walked back to the hotel, from the scratching of a broom against cobblestones to the hushed voices walking around the garden. He looked over and saw Luka and Ahim's smiling faces, chatting away merrily as they wove their way around the perfectly manicured shrubbery. Ahim noticed him first and waved, with Luka soon following suit, and he gave them both a polite nod before rounding the corner of the building.

He nodded to the hotel employees in turn as he made his way back to the room he was sharing with the other male members of the crew, not thinking to hesitate as he opened the door. Of course, this meant that he got a fair eyeful of his captain sitting on the tatami floor, yukata spread wide open and his hand tangled in a mess of blond curls bobbing diligently between his legs. With reflexes honed over years of training, including that morning, Joe pulled the door shut quickly and quietly. Then, he waited.

It was a decent hotel, nothing shabby or exquisite, but the walls were still thin enough that Joe was painfully aware of when his captain had reached release. He gave them a few more minutes, waiting until he could hear the faint scraping sounds of feet against tatami, and opened the door again.

Somehow he'd managed to catch them again, although this time was a far less compromising position than the last. Both Doc and Marvelous were standing, robes left open, and the blond's hands were in the process of roaming carefully over the smooth skin of Marvelous' chest. At the sound of the door opening he jumped, moving to grab at the edges of Marvelous' yukata briefly before seeing that it was Joe who had entered the room. The engineer's cheeks, already flushed pink from activity, reddened to a brilliant scarlet, and he gave a sharp squeak of fear and pulled his yukata shut before pushing Joe aside and running from the room.

Joe watched him go, hearing a small selection of mumbled excuses before Doc disappeared down the hallway and around a corner, and he couldn't help but give a small smirk at the engineer's jumpiness. He reached out to close the door before turning that same smirk on his somewhat disheveled captain.

"Aren't you supposed to knock before entering a room?" Marvelous grumbled, giving Joe a grumpy sneer as he tied the robe back into place.

"Not if it's my room I'm entering," Joe countered, and moved over towards the closet. His yukata was neatly folded there, and he began to peel the sweaty clothes from his body in preparation for a proper bath.

Marvelous snorted, but it was a defeated sound that meant he was willing to drop the subject. "I told you I was going to take advantage of this trip," he said somewhat defensively, referring back to their silent conversation from the day before. "Let me know if there's a better place to do that, yeah?"

A half-comfortable silence fell over the room as Joe finished changing into his yukata, and he turned to see Marvelous leaning against the far wall, eyes averted out of respect for his friend. "You two just might want to be more careful, that's all." The words tumbled out before he had a chance to check them, and Joe desperately hoped they hadn't sounded too out of line.

The captain folded his arms obstinately, looking up at his first mate through the bangs of his mussed hair. "Or what? He's the one who wants to keep it secret, not me."

Joe sighed and crossed his arms, just as much in his own defense as it was consciously mimicking Marvelous' actions. "Not much of a secret if I know about it. Does anyone else?"

A shadow flickered over Marvelous' face and he looked away. "Gai might. Maybe."

"That's over half the crew, Marvelous."

Silence filled the room again, this time significantly less comfortable than before. Joe watched as his captain began to sort through his thoughts, each one affecting a different expression on his face, and he wondered exactly what was going through Marvelous' mind. Several long minutes passed before Marvelous finally sighed and looked Joe in the eye. "It's still not my call to make."

Joe shrugged and looked away. "Maybe so, maybe not. But if the rest of the crew finds out without either of you telling them?" The first mate paused, conflicted in his decision to keep talking. He knew this word would hit hard and deep, but at this point he couldn't help but believe the wound was worth it. "They'll feel betrayed."

Marvelous shut his eyes and lowered his head, each hand gripping the opposite elbow so tightly Joe was worried he'd rip the thin yukata to shreds. He stayed that way for nearly half a minute, keeping Joe on edge, before finally loosening his grip and nodding once, never looking back upwards.

It was enough for Joe. He turned around and exited the room, making sure to close the door slowly behind him, partially out of respect for Marvelous, and partially because he had noticed Doc fleeing down the hallway as he'd left. It was obvious the engineer had been listening at the door, but Joe wasn't about to call him out on it. Instead, he walked towards the hot springs to clean up and relax. That was what they were there for, after all.

* * *

><p>The next morning was an occasion for a hearty, traditional Japanese breakfast, complete with rice, fish, and soup. Doc remarked on the oddity of having dinner-type foods in the morning, while Joe noted that it meant one would be well-fed with plenty of protein and carbohydrates to start the day. After breakfast the crewmates packed their bags and bid the hotel and hot springs one final goodbye before heading out the door and back to the quarry where they'd parked the galleon for the weekend.<p>

They climbed the ropes together and walked into the main room of the galleon, dropping bags here and there as temporary holding spots for their stuff while they reacclimated themselves to their normal living space. Navi chirped greetings to all of them in turn, making sure to fill them all in on the nothing that had happened in their absence. Luka and Ahim huddled together on the couch, paging through a new magazine while Gai tried to angle himself properly behind them to see what exactly it was they were looking at. Joe leaned back onto his workout bench, not quite in the mood to exercise yet, but sure that he would be sometime soon, and Marvelous went straight to his chair and sat down with a grin directed towards Navi and their chest of keys.

Doc was the last to enter the main cabin, clutching his bag tightly to his chest and looking around as if it were a strange new space. After confirming that each and every one of the crew was, in fact, in the room, he straightened up and walked straight up to Marvelous' chair.

He stood there for nearly three whole seconds before Marvelous realized that something was a little off, and the captain dropped his hand from the chest to look up at the engineer. "What is it?"

The blond took a deep breath, leaned over, closed his eyes and planted a firmly unmistakable kiss right on Marvelous' somewhat surprised lips.

Joe had been watching the whole time, but the awkward moment lasted long enough for Luka, Ahim, and even Gai to notice what exactly was going on. The newest member gave out a small squeak, which then grew to a shrill squeal as Marvelous grinned through the kiss and eagerly grabbed the back of Doc's head to pull them into an even deeper kiss.

"Oh my," Ahim said, cheeks tinging with pink as she raised a dainty hand to cover her smile.

"It's about time," Luka agreed, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other while she watched the show.

The kiss ended and Doc pulled back, just slightly, so that the two were giving each other the devious sort of look normally reserved for mischievous lovers. Their faces were flushed pink and red and Marvelous didn't wait any longer to stand up, hoist the blushing engineer over his shoulder, and carry him off to his own private quarters.

Secrets didn't last long on pirate ships, indeed.


	5. Interludes Settling In

_(Author's Note: These interludes take place during the course of episode 33.)_

Gai's sudden insistence on cleaning the entire ship was not wasted. He cleaned the entire main cabin in minutes, true, but then moved on to the kitchen, upper deck, crow's nest, engine room, and pretty much any other area in the ship that had more than three sweeps' worth of floor space.

It was funny at first, but eventually the rest of the crew retreated to their personal bedrooms, where they could lock the door and keep the hyperactive cabin boy well out. He whined and moaned about how he could have had everyone's rooms cleaned and sorted and they wouldn't have had to lift a finger, but the doors remained firmly shut and Gai eventually moved on.

Which was likely in his best interest, in the end. As messy as Marvelous' room was, the captain was far more interested in the convenient excuse to lock himself in with the ship's engineer.

* * *

><p>"Poor Gai," Doc murmured to himself as he gave his Mobirates a worried look. He'd tried calling the Gokai Cellular a few more times, even after Gai had left, just to see if it might work the second, third, maybe tenth time. But all had ended up at the inexplicable answering service, and he was out of ideas for tracking the lost device. "I wish I could do more."<p>

Marvelous had watched him pace back and forth during each call, diligently redialing the number over and over, and was frankly pretty tired of the futility. "Give it a rest, Doc," he chided lightly. He knew how much Doc could worry himself into the floor, and the captain wasn't anywhere near ready to be stressed out about much yet. "Take your time and see if anything comes to you."

He got a strained smile as a response and took that as a good sign. Doc nodded, then put the Mobirates back in his pocket and ruffled his hair to get the last of his frustration out. "You're right," the engineer eventually said. "Worrying isn't going to help Gai at all." He paced his way over to Marvelous' chair and leaned back against the armrest, letting his head fall back so he could gaze pointlessly at the ceiling.

It was an odd action, something that Marvelous was still trying to get used to. The two of them were becoming more and more familiar around each other, something that was certainly fun as far as intimacy went, but also a bit of a curve ball as far as everyday life tended to go. But while he had to move his arm just a bit to leave the room for Doc to sit on the armrest, he decided to keep any complaints to himself and just enjoy the situation.

"And if we're going to do things that aren't going to help Gai," Marvelous continued, hooking his displaced arm around Doc's waist and pulling the blond properly into his lap, "then let's have a little bit more fun about it, shall we?"

* * *

><p>"Oi, Doc."<p>

"Eh? What is it?"

"Make me some gyouza."

"Gyouza? Right now?"

"Yeah. And make it good as that guy's."

"What? Marvelous, I can't do that! At least, not right away..."

"Well, then keep trying until you get it right!"

* * *

><p><em>(Author's Note: These interludes take place during the course of episode 34.)<em>

The pout was there on his face, plain as his blond hair. Marvelous had dragged the engineer to his bedroom for some out-of-the-way cuddles, but Doc just wasn't responding, and the captain was pretty sure he knew why.

"Are you jealous?" he asked, knowing full well there was no point in dancing around the issue.

Doc huffed a bit, a sound that Marvelous figured was supposed to sound indignant, but came out more like a whimper. "Of that guy? Of course not."

Marvelous wasn't convinced. He kept his right arm around the blond's shoulders but rolled the rest of his body away to look up at the ceiling idly. "Am I going to have to share you?"

He meant the question to come out playful and teasing, but he knew the moment the words left his lips that they had a much more serious tone to them. And he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

The younger boy squirmed a bit in his arm. "...no. Not at all." But he stayed put, on his side, facing the door, and Marvelous found himself wondering if Luka would end up leaving them after all. And if she did, how much he might argue it.

* * *

><p>Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Marvelous could feel it and he did the only thing he could think of at that moment, which was to follow the fuming engineer back to his ridiculously messy room. Doc didn't complain as the captain followed him inside, and thankfully waited until Marvelous had closed the door to explain further.<p>

"That's not Luka!"

Marvelous sniffed loudly. "Well, she did seem a bit off." It'd ended up being a fairly weird dinner as a result, and that was something that never sat well with him after the fact.

The blond spun around, closed the gap between them and grabbed Marvelous by the shirt collar. "It's. Not. Luka." Each word was ground out with such fierce determination, matched by a fire burning in his eyes, that Marvelous wanted nothing more than to pry his fingers off his shirt and take a step away. So he did.

"No, it's not," he finally agreed, not that he'd needed convincing. "We've got an impostor on the ship." He chanced a quick glance at Doc and saw that the engineer had relaxed slightly at his agreement. An idea came to mind and the jealous bit of him had to say it aloud.

"Shall we kill her?"

* * *

><p>It was late and dark and Marvelous had just been on the brink of falling asleep when he heard Doc start to talk again. The engineer had been strangely silent ever since Luka had come back on board, but as long as he still followed Marvelous to his bed at night the captain had found no legitimate reason to complain.<p>

"You don't need to share me," Doc began quietly, his voice just below the point of echoing in the large space of Marvelous' quarters. "And I don't want to be shared."

Marvelous grunted lightly, shifting slightly to wake himself up a bit as well as pull the blond in a little closer to his own body. "But you like her."

He could feel Doc's head nod. "I do. But..." His voice trailed off and Marvelous felt like it was taking his heart with it. It was an uncomfortable feeling, not unlike stargazing, and he clung to Doc just a little bit more tightly to keep his balance on the cushy mattress. "Not the way I like you."

The words didn't quite make sense to the captain's ears, and he was about to prod him for a bit more explanation when he felt his engineer grind back against him. "...is that so?" he ended up asking, and wondered where things were going from there.

Doc stayed neatly underneath his arm as he turned himself over, bringing his left arm around Marvelous' waist and pulling them even more closely together. "Yeah, it is," he said, and proceeded to kiss away the rest of Marvelous' worries for the night.

* * *

><p><em>(Author's Note: These interludes take place during the course of episodes 35 and 36.)<em>

The crew followed the little white robot as it wound its way through the parking lot and towards the motorway's entrance. Gai was tagging along behind it like an obedient puppy, with the rest of them taking their time in following their unexpected visitor. Marvelous had been trailing at the back of the group, but he saw the look on Doc's face and decided to catch up.

"It's from another dimension," the engineer said without any prompting, musing aloud to his captain. Marvelous dutifully remained quiet to listen. "But what sort? Are these machine worlds parallel universes, similar to our own but with minor changes? Are they completely different existences altogether? Or maybe complementary to our universe?" He crossed his arms and frowned in thought. "I want to find out more, but at the same time..."

This was a wavelength that Marvelous could pick up on. "...do we really need to be getting involved?" he finished, and was rewarded with a nod of acknowledgment. The same question had been running through his own mind since the robot had first asked them for help, and Marvelous was pretty damn sure he'd need to have an answer to it before long. And judging by the intensely curious look on Doc's face, he had a feeling he knew what that answer would ultimately be.

* * *

><p>When the little engines referred to each other as 'darling', Marvelous rolled his eyes.<p>

When he caught Doc's unmistakably lustful gaze immediately afterward, he wished he'd sat at the other end of the table instead.

* * *

><p>Gai was leading the triumphant parade back to the town, and Marvelous was more than happy to just follow along. That is, until a hand smacked him smartly upside the head.<p>

"Oi!" he growled out as he turned around, expecting to see Luka standing there angrily for some unknown reason. But instead it was Doc, blond hair bobbing in the light desert breeze, eyes narrowed and glaring right at him. "What was that for?"

"You were too slow," the engineer said with an unmistakable pout. "You should've shot first."

Marvelous thought back to the quick draw against the Gaiark sheriff, remembering the flash of the other gun before the coin hit the ground. "He shot too early," he protested, crossing his arms and turning away from the rest of the crew as they walked off. "He cheated."

Somehow Doc managed to narrow his eyes further, and he leaned forward to smack Marvelous one more time. "Of course he did! He's the bad guy!"

The words rang true, but the captain was far more interested in the reasoning behind the argument rather than winning it. "Aren't we the good guys here? Don't the good guys follow the rules?"

Doc let out a near-inhuman growl and ruffled his hair into a ridiculous poof. "You're a pirate!"

The situation seemed to be getting a little absurd, but Marvelous finally saw where this was going, and couldn't help but smirk as he pointed out, "I still won, though."

Then, before Marvelous could be any more infuriating, Doc grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him hard enough to shut him up.

* * *

><p>The sky was dark, starlight twinkling in through the portholes to the captain's quarters. It was a rare moment, before bedtime, when clothing was being put away and things prepared for an evening of sleep, and the room was unusually silent and tense.<p>

Doc set his clothing aside, neatly folded despite the state of his own bedroom, and crawled carefully under the comforter. On the other side of the bed, Marvelous took off the last of his jewelry and let it sit in a messy pile on the nightstand. He looked down at the engineer, huddled underneath the cover, and sighed.

"You should have been more careful, too," he said finally, the words feeling incredibly odd as they left his mouth. "Good thing I saw what was going on and stepped in."

The covers shifted slightly as Doc curled himself further into a ball. "...I know."

Marvelous hit the light switch and crawled into bed, scooting closer until he could drape one arm possessively around the quiet cook. "Good, then." He was pretty sure that wasn't the right thing to say, but the right thing was doing a fine job of eluding him at the moment.

Silence fell again, and Marvelous found himself thinking back to the two-man attack he and Doc had unleashed near the end of the battle. It'd felt pretty good, actually, even if it he'd been driven by the fear of seeing Doc get in over his head. In the end, things had worked out okay.

There was a murmur from the pillow, something that Doc had just said and he'd completely missed. "What was that?" he asked automatically.

"I said thank you," Doc repeated, before burrowing himself back into Marvelous' open arms. The captain let his hands clasp around the engineer and contentedly drifted off to sleep.


	6. Affirmation

The air was thick with smoke, the acrid smell of burning metal and rubber stinging at Marvelous' nostrils even through the helmet. He kept one hand on the wheel as GoJyu Gokai-Oh shook violently from the attack, and he could tell that they were outmatched.

_It's not fair_. The thought bubbled up from his stomach and clung tightly to his heart as he watched the main screen fizzle from the power surge. His eyes darted to his crew, one by one, lingering the longest on the shining green helmet to his right. They didn't stand a chance, not like this, and like hell was he going to let them die.

"So this is it," he said aloud, more to himself than the rest of the crew. Somehow, saying it made it easier to accept as truth.

Gai, ever over-vigilant, heard it first. "What's that, Marvelous-san?"

Marvelous shut his eyes briefly, not that the rest of the crew could see that through the helmet's visor. In a way, he depended on it. "I'll stay." Each word he said felt like he was being stabbed in the gut. "You guys get out."

He heard Luka's cry of confusion and bit his lip, but it was Doc's pleading voice that hit the hardest. "What are you talking about, Marvelous?"

"Just get out!" he yelled over, unable to say anything more. Maybe it didn't make sense to them, but it was second nature to him. Maybe even first nature, if there was such a thing. He had to protect them all. His safety came second to theirs, whether they wanted it or not. "Captain's orders!"

Joe said something, but Marvelous was no longer listening. The sizzling in his ears, whether it was from fear or the galleon's circuits frying, was too loud for him to give the situation any more thought. Without even looking, he gave a curse and swiped his hand across the buttons at the bottom the wheel's console. He just barely saw the streaks of color as his crew was ejected to safety, then he let the growing pain take over and the world faded to white.

* * *

><p>Sky and ground twirled wildly around him, growing brighter as a soft green glow indicated the loss of his suit, and then Doc was face-first on the ground and tasting asphalt in his mouth. It was either asphalt or blood, and at the moment he wasn't sure if he cared which was which.<p>

"No," he whispered as he stared at the cracked sidewalk beneath him. He scrabbled against it wildly as he turned himself over and pushed up to look back in the direction of GoJyu Gokai-Oh. The machine was buffeted by white explosions for less than a second more before it was engulfed, and the galleon proper was flung off through the mountains in a smoking red streak.

"Marvelous!" he found himself screaming, joined by Ahim and Luka on either side. The girls hesitated afterward, stunned by what they'd just seen, but Doc was already scrambling to his feet and running off in the same direction the galleon had fallen. He made it three, maybe four steps before he felt Luka's hand grab him forcefully by the elbow. "What?" he nearly yelled back in her face as he struggled to move forward.

"Don't go running off by yourself!" Luka barked right back, pulling his elbow again so that he spun around to face her properly. Her hair was a mess and her face covered in scratches from the asphalt, but her eyes were ablaze with an anger he definitely recognized. "The rest of us care about him too. We'll go together."

A pair of gentle hands clung to his other arm tenderly, and he knew without looking that Ahim had caught up. "Agreed. It would be best if we traveled in numbers, in case we were to run across any more enemies in the process." He glanced over and found that she was giving him a calm, pleading look that nearly served to upset him even more.

He pulled his arm from Luka's grasp, but held himself back from running. "Of course," he said quietly, "we'll travel together." Suddenly, the place he'd been so desperate to reach just a few seconds before felt like an almost undesirable place to be.

"We care about him too, idiot," Luka said condescendingly, but Doc could hear the strain in her voice. She, too, was having difficulty keeping it together. "Just because you two are involved doesn't mean the rest of us stop caring."

Her words meant well, but they triggered something in Doc's head and his vision blurred. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way!" he cried out, tears beginning to well at the corners of his eyes. He almost reached up to wipe them away, but his emotions got the better of him and he took a step back from the girls instead. "It's all wrong, can't you see?"

Ahim gave him a careful look, like she was analyzing a new variety of tea on the shelf. "None of us expected this to happen, Doc-san. None of us wanted it to happen, either."

"Especially the kicking us out part," Luka added as she crossed her arms. "Trust me when I say I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind for that one."

Doc looked from Ahim to Luka, back to Ahim, and then the rational part of his mind kicked in and he felt some of his anger melt away. He realized his hands were clenched so tightly his nails were digging into his palms, and he forced himself to relax so that the biting pain began to fade. "...definitely," he finally said, his eyes cast down and to the side. "We'll all give him a good talking to about this." He lifted his eyes back up and gave each of the girls a tentative smile.

"That's the spirit," Luka said with a grin, and punched him lightly on the shoulder to drive the point home. "Now let's go find our captain."

* * *

><p>"<em>Isn't that what being a pirate's about?"<em>

AkaRed's voice faded into the whiteness as Marvelous slowly became aware of the pain radiating from each and every one of his joints. As real as his short conversation with his former mentor had felt, it was growing more and more ethereal as the pain became more real. By the time his head began to throb, he wasn't entirely sure he'd heard anything at all before waking up on the floor of the galleon's bridge.

He groaned and the sound felt like little pins pricking into his temples. Carefully, almost experimentally, he moved his head and could feel a bit of moisture pooling underneath his cheek. Before he could resolve to open his eyes, there was a fluttering of mechanical wings and something that could only have been Navi started lightly beating him about the head.

"Marvelous!" she cried out, and he winced briefly before finally opening his eyes. "Marvelous...thank goodness, you're not dead!" At that moment he wasn't entirely sure that being alive was the preferable option, but he screwed up his strength and pushed himself up from the floor. His eyes cracked open and he could see that he'd bled onto the floor while unconscious, although it wasn't enough to really worry him.

Navi flapped up and faced him properly. "Marvelous, I'd never forgive you if you'd died and left me behind."

He couldn't help the smirk that cracked across his face, even if it meant pulling at the small gash along his left temple. "Like I'd die," he said with as much confidence as he could muster. "I've got too much to watch out for to let a bozo like that kill me now." Flashes of color blinked through his mind, and some of his dreamed conversation came back to him. "Not when I'm likely to have crew ready to do it for him."

Navi protested almost immediately, but Marvelous ignored it and pulled himself to his feet. The galleon's self-repair had kicked in and power was already back on to the main screen. Nothing had been selected yet, but in the upper right hand corner were six color-coded tracking lights, and all of them were brightly lit. He smiled again, ignored the pain, and grabbed the top of his wheel.

"I've got someone to return to," he said, more to himself than Navi. "I'd better not keep him waiting any longer."

* * *

><p>What happened on board the galleon that evening was nothing short of a celebration. Not only had they thoroughly defeated Walz Gil, crown prince of the Zangyack empire, but they'd discovered their own ultimate power as well. Not to mention, Marvelous had managed to survive long enough to be completely and utterly scolded by every single member of his crew.<p>

"Don't you ever do that again." Gai had been the first to pull him aside during the festivities, his face an odd mix of seriousness and rosy cheeks. "I might be younger than you, but I'm old enough to make my own decisions. Don't take them away from me!"

Ahim had been next, far more composed than the rest of the crew, if just because she had a tendency to drink less. "I know – we all know – how much you care about us, Marvelous-san," she'd said properly, keeping her eyes trained on the rest of the room as she spoke. "However, if it isn't too forward for me to say, some of us would much rather die by your side than have you die without us." She met his eyes then, gave a small smile, and walked back to pour herself another cup of cherry tea.

Pink tinged the tops of Luka's cheeks as she yanked Marvelous over into a corner. She smelled lightly of rum and berries, and he was sure she'd probably had more to drink than anyone else in the room that evening. "If I'm gonna run, it's because I'm the one running," she said determinedly, a slight slurring just barely audible at the edges of her words. "And I'm not ever gonna run while you're still fighting. So get over yourself already." She punctuated the sentence with a punch to Marvelous' arm and went back to the table to grab another chocolate or three.

His first mate didn't so much pull him aside as much as simply sidle up next to him when he was taking another swig from the rum bottle. "Is there anything I even need to say?" he said quietly, and waited for Marvelous to reply.

The captain shook his head. It'd been made incredibly clear to him what he'd done wrong. Hallucinating a scolding from AkaRed had been bad enough, but his crew obviously wasn't going to let the subject drop anytime soon. He might be brash and impulsive, but he wasn't stupid. "I think you lot have said enough." He handed the bottle to Joe, who took a quick gulp of his own. "It was stupid. Won't happen again, I promise."

Joe nodded and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before replying. "Then you and I are square. But there's one person left you need to settle things with." He gestured towards the couch with the bottle as he handed it back, and Marvelous followed the gesture to see Doc sitting there with an odd expression on his face. It looked like a combination of guilt and relief, and it made Marvelous's stomach twist painfully.

He gave a nod to his first mate, then walked around the outside of the festivities to lean against the side of the couch, nudging right up against the fretting blond. Doc flinched at first, then looked up to see that it was his captain standing there and he visibly relaxed. "Oh, um, hi, Marvelous."

"Wanna talk?" Doc shook his head and Marvelous sighed. The engineer could be read as easily as an open book. He held out the bottle of rum and, after a moment's hesitation, Doc accepted it and took several long gulps. It was all Marvelous could do to keep from grabbing it back so the blond didn't over-imbibe, but Doc stopped before Marvelous really got worried, and handed the bottle back. "How about now?"

The engineer nodded, only a bit reluctantly, and Marvelous waited until the rest of the crew was paying attention to Gai's drunken antics before sneaking the two of them down the stairs and into Marvelous' private quarters. Shutting the door kept out most of the ruckus, and had the added benefit of giving them both the personal security to speak freely. Of course, the alcohol likely had something to do with that as well.

"I'm sorry," Marvelous started first, hoping to get the nasty bit out of the way as quickly as possible. He hated apologizing, despised admitting any sort of error or weakness, but he knew when to get over his pride so that life could go on again. "It was bad enough that I acted on my own, without thinking of my crew. But I-"

Doc stood away, facing the corner of the room, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he interrupted. "But you didn't stop to think about what we could do together," he said shortly, his words laden with more emotion than Marvelous could remember hearing from his engineer. "That maybe, sacrificing yourself wasn't the best option available."

"And it wasn't." Marvelous was quick to get back into the conversation before it turned into another lecture. "I know that now. It was stupid – _I _was stupid – and I don't think I can apologize enough." He shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for a reply, but when none came, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to wait for any more emotional tirades. "So...you know. What can I do."

Doc tilted his head, blond curls bobbing slightly. "What can you do?"

Marvelous realized he hadn't put the right inflection on his question. He couldn't bear to blush openly, so instead he scowled at the floor angrily. "Yeah. What can I do? To, you know, make it up to you?"

His floor was pretty dirty, he realized, with quite a bit of dust and grime coating the wooden floorboards. For a moment he wondered how long it'd been since he cleaned, then he remember that he didn't ever clean – more or less as a rule – and that maybe he should've let Gai do the honors the last time the cabin boy had been on a hyperactive streak. He almost got around to wondering if he should order Gai to clean when Doc interrupted his thoughts by grabbing both of his shoulders.

"Don't worry about making it up to me." Marvelous looked up into Doc's eyes and, not for the first time, was completely unsure about what he was seeing. Was that concern? Guilt? Lust? It was a passion that he was sure Doc never showed the rest of the crew, and the thought that it might be reserved especially for him was simultaneously exciting and worrying. "Just promise me you won't ever do that again."

"I won't," Marvelous replied immediately, scowling slightly at his unreadable engineer. "I mean that. So all of you-" He had been ready to launch in a lecture of his own when Doc crushed their lips together in a near-bruising kiss, and most of the words he'd had ready disappeared into a urgent need churning in the pit of his stomach. He wasted no time in wrapping his hands around the blond's tiny waist, and the two of them guided each other over to fall purposefully into the bed.

Doc pulled back, just a little. "It's just me here," he whispered breathlessly around Marvelous' swollen lips. "You can't get rid of me now."

Marvelous smirked. "Like I would," he shot back, then flipped them over together so that the blond was pinned beneath him. Doc responded with half-lidded eyes and a provocative wiggle, and the captain could feel his blood rushing to all the right places. He let his lower mind take over with the pleasurable activities, while the rest of him began to finally accept the fact that he'd fallen ridiculously, unmistakably, in love.


	7. Resignation

It had started just like any other day.

The little alarm clock had gone off early, like always, and Marvelous had responded by rolling over and pulling a pillow over his head before falling back asleep. The next time he opened his eyes, the alarm was off and the other half of the bed empty. When he breathed in he could smell the wafting odor of fried sausage, and he knew that Doc was up and cooking. And if the sausage was almost done, then breakfast was almost done, and it was time to get up.

He pulled on his pants first, then socks, then made sure each and every piece of his jewelry was in the proper place before slipping on a shirt. He only bothered to fasten the last few buttons of the shirt, because it was still early and he just couldn't be arsed to care enough to look nice. Besides, they didn't have any plans set in stone for the day. When they knew what they were going to be doing, he'd get dressed the rest of the way, but until then, comfort came first.

The next thing on the agenda was to eat the delicious food he was smelling, so he followed his nose out to the main cabin and found that, as usual, he was the last one to rise. Joe was hard at work with his morning exercise routine in the corner, Ahim was idly dusting the tea sets on the display shelf, and Luka was busying herself with the dartboard. Marvelous couldn't help but notice that Luka had gotten surprisingly good at darts, and wondered if he'd be able to beat her, even with his bracelet off.

A short commotion in the kitchen confirmed that Gai was helping Doc prepare breakfast, and before long the two cooks entered the room carrying hefty trays laden with fruit, sausage and toast. "Food's ready!" Doc called in his best singsong voice, and Marvelous found himself grinning like a maniac. A month ago he would have convinced himself that he was just that hungry. Nowadays he knew better.

He managed to catch Doc's eye as he went to sit down, and the two exchanged an unspoken morning greeting before the crew as a whole tore into the meal. Not much had changed around the table in the past few weeks, except a slight rearrangement that resulted in moving their two chairs close enough together for their knees to touch. While he still delighted in the occasional playful theft of food or drink, Marvelous had more or less managed to tone down his teasing so the crew could get through meals without too much eye-rolling.

"The pantry is just about empty," Doc said as soon as they were all seated and plates were filled. "I've got a shopping list put together, if anyone wouldn't mind running to the store today?"

There was maybe a second or two of chewing-and-swallowing pause before Ahim nodded politely and smiled at Doc. "I was hoping to go for a walk today," she said gently. "I can easily pick up groceries while I am out and about."

"I'll go too!" Gai called out, right at the same time Joe nodded and said, "I wouldn't mind going for a walk." The two gave each other startled glances across the table, but Ahim simply took a sip of tea and smiled.

"That would be wonderful," she said, and both Gai and Joe looked sheepish and went back to shoving food in their mouths. Marvelous watched the entire exchange with a smirk – he'd known for a while that his first mate held a bit of a torch for the former princess, but there was little doubt now as to Gai's intentions. Hopefully the two could keep the competition quiet, and with minimal bloodshed.

He took another bite of sausage and only barely managed to keep his mouth shut as he grinned at the rest of his crew. Just another regular morning, living his dream. Life just couldn't get any better.

* * *

><p>"Marvelous! It's Zangyack!" Gai's voice had come over the Mobirates loud and clear, and the audible explosions in the background left no doubt as to the urgency. The captain had been engrossed in a game of darts with Luka, but all activity had paused the moment the Mobirates had rung. Now he gave Luka and Doc quick, meaningful looks as he replied to Gai.<p>

"We'll be there," he said curtly, and hung up. "Let's go." His crewmates nodded dutifully, and the three of them set off for the the location currently pinging the galleon's on-screen map. It wasn't far, since they'd flown close to the supermarket in the first place, and within minutes they ran up on what could only be described as a massive battle in progress.

Goumin were nearly everywhere, some even running about randomly as groups of maybe twenty or so surrounded each of Marvelous' crew. They had long since transformed, and had been fighting long enough to sport some battle damage as well. Gai was keeping his group at bay with his spear, while Ahim and Joe were fighting back-to-back with a well-executed gun-and-sword combination. Marvelous let himself feel a small spark of pride before he remembered that there were more important things to do.

The three of them transformed and jumped into the fray, hacking and shooting their way through the crowds of Goumin to get to their teammates. Marvelous lost track of the other members as he stuck to Doc's side, watching his engineer's back as they fought off wave after wave of attackers.

It hadn't quite sunk in yet, how well the two of them managed to fight together. With Joe it had been sort of second nature, the two of them fighting back-to-back and synchronized like they'd actually practiced together. When Marvelous and Joe teamed up, enemies fell, and it had been a source of pride for the pirate captain that his first mate gave as much trust as he earned.

It was different with Doc. There was an innate cunning in Gokai Green's fighting style, something that Marvelous hadn't really noticed before. When they fought solo, all he could see was Doc's stunning ability to perform ridiculous moves and have them work out surprisingly well. When they fought together, it was almost as if those same ridiculous moves served to fill holes in Marvelous' own defense, and deflect enemies the captain didn't see until it was almost too late. Where he moved as one with Joe, he moved as a team with Doc.

He had to admit, he rather liked it.

Another wave of Goumin surged forward on the two, and self-congratulatory thoughts fled from Marvelous' head as he rushed forward to cover Doc's back. He blocked two maces with his sword, pushing the soldiers back as he shot each one of them, plus three others nearby, enough to force them to fall back. Behind him, he could almost feel Doc fall forward, roll up on his arms to his hands and wrap his legs around the Goumin's neck. With that momentum, the engineer pulled himself up to the enemy's shoulders, then twisted around and flipped the Goumin with him back down to the ground, causing him to kick another pair of soldiers in the face on the way.

It didn't make sense, but it worked.

They fought together for several more minutes before Marvelous started getting worried. It wasn't as if they hadn't fought off seemingly endless waves of the Zangyack army before, but he suddenly remembered that they'd taken out the commander of the Earth invasion, Prince Walz Gil himself. Unless the remaining subordinates had taken up command of the fleet, there wasn't anyone around to call the shots. Not that they knew of.

Marvelous narrowed his eyes behind the mask of his helmet. Something wasn't right.

He took the opportunity between waves of soldiers to stand up straight and look around. The rest of his crew was still up and fighting, but they were obviously getting tired. There was a lag in the swing of Gai's spear, a brief hesitation between Ahim's shots. Even Joe was beginning to slack a bit in his otherwise-impeccable fighting stance. The Goumin were still running about, just as many as before, if not more.

But there wasn't a single action commander in sight. Not even a Sugoumin calling the shots. With nowhere else to look for answers, Marvelous did the only other thing he could think of.

He looked up.

The explosions began not even a half-second later, blasting at the edges of their battle and moving inward. Marvelous realized too late that the entire area had begun to darken, not from the standard passage of time, but from the invasion-level fleet of Zangyack ships that were now hovering directly above them. His first thought was to call for the galleon, but another explosion sent both him and Doc flying towards the rest of the crew. He readied himself, and rolled properly when he finally hit the ground, but his knee faltered as he went to stand and he found himself kneeling.

His eyes went immediately towards Gokai Green, who was struggling with pulling himself up from the dirt. The rest of the crew was just as beaten, but at least they'd managed to all keep their powers about them. Gritting his teeth, Marvelous looked forward as the sea of Goumin parted and two very distinct figures walked into view.

The one in front was unfamiliar to him, with a boxy helmet-like head on a suit of armor. But he carried himself with the dangerous calm of a justifiably confident warrior, and Marvelous was fairly sure that one by himself would be a challenge.

The second figure, shadowed by two more commanders behind him, was far more recognizable. Mostly because his face was on every bit of Zangyack currency in the universe.

Emperor Ackdos Gil.

Marvelous' blood boiled unexpectedly, and he suddenly had the strength and energy to leap to his feet, pistol firing with absolute precision as he took the opportunity presented to him. He could hear Joe yelling something, some sort of warning, but he couldn't be bothered with that now. It was time to act, or be captured. And capture wasn't any sort of acceptable option.

Almost before he'd even raised his pistol, the first figure darted in front of the emperor and raised his sword to expertly deflect each and every one of the bullets. They bounced away, some striking a few of the gathered Goumin, but ultimately the attack had been useless. He readied his sword for a proper charge when the figure – Damaras, by the sound of Joe's warning – calmly raised his own weapon and sent a beam of burning blue energy slashing at the entire crew.

He tried to dodge, but his legs wouldn't cooperate, and he felt the blow slice through his clothing and send him flying backwards into the gravel. His vision was hazed with red as his power left him, and this time he couldn't even pull himself together enough to land properly. The wind was knocked out of him completely as he hit the ground, rocks and gravel biting and tearing at his skin and clothing. He opened his eyes and saw Luka, Joe, Doc, Ahim, all splayed out on the ground and trying desperately to gather the strength to stand.

One more time he gritted his teeth and lifted his head, glaring up at the Zangyack surrounding them. Every ounce of him was screaming to attack, to take them all out, but the pain was too great. He scrabbled to gain some sort of purchase on the ground, find some sort of support so he could push himself back to his feet, but his hand shot out from under him and his face landed back in the dirt.

_This is it._

This wasn't how he'd wanted to die. Ideally, he would have just lived forever, searching the universe for treasure with his crew by his side. What the treasure was didn't matter, all that mattered was the adventure itself. Marvelous felt a new pain, a stabbing at his chest, and he felt hot tears start to stream down his cheeks.

The ground crunched softly as Damaras and the emperor took a few steps closer. "This farce ends here," Ackdos Gil said calmly, his voice deep and even.

"Never!" Marvelous found the energy to speak, somehow, and he wasn't going to waste it. "Your precious empire won't last forever. If not us, then the next group, but it doesn't matter. Zangyack _will_ fall."

Damaras snorted quietly at the captain's defiant words, and Marvelous fumed inwardly at being taken so lightly. So what if he couldn't even crawl to his feet? They were the Gokaigers, _his crew_, and they were a force to be reckoned with. Or, at least, had been.

There came a rustle of gravel behind him, more than the pained shuffling he'd heard coming from his crew, and a plaid shoe stepped into view. "Doc," Marvelous choked out, craning his neck upwards to look at his battered lover. _Why is he...no, wait, he can't, not by himself._ He forced his arm to move, just enough so that he could tug on the cuff of Doc's khakis. "Get out of here. Regroup. Then come back to save the rest of us." It might be crazy to ask, but it was better than the alternative. And there was a part of Marvelous that, while loathe to admit it so readily, would rather see Doc alive and safe than dead by his side.

The blond paused, just for a moment, then looked down at Marvelous with a stunningly sad smile. Again, Marvelous was struck with the engineer's eyes, like something was hidden there that Doc just wasn't sharing. Words caught in his throat and the muscles in his hand twitched, and he let go of the cuff as Doc turned his face forward and continued to walk.

Marvelous could hear the rest of the crew express their dismay as well, but it seemed to fade away as Doc stumbled, untouched, up to Emperor Ackdos Gil and fell to one knee.

"Your supreme highness," the curly-haired engineer said, in a tone of voice Marvelous had never heard before, and he felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. "I present to you the Gokaigers. As promised."


	8. Justification

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, slow and steady, causing each and every Zangyack soldier to scurry to the side and stand at strict attention. News travels fast on a ship, and there wasn't a single person on board who hadn't heard what had happened. And every one of them knew that when Elite Forces Commander Don Dogoier walked by, it was in everyone's best interest to show proper respect.

It helped that he was no longer dressed in contrasting plaids, the ridiculous ties and argyle socks tucked away where nobody could see. His outfit and velvet coat had been traded in for the black and gray military uniform, cut exactly to his size so that it perfectly hugged every line of his body. His blond bangs were pinned back tightly on one side, the rest of the curls having been tamed down to little more than unruly waves.

He kept his face stoic, nodding at the appropriate action commanders as he passed. Nobody followed him, thankfully, and he was able to pause for a few minutes by a large window that overlooked the Earth below. Behind him he could hear the hallway slowly return to life, and traffic resumed as normal, as long as he didn't make eye contact with anyone.

This wasn't how he'd wanted things to go.

When he pressed himself to come up with an alternate, realistic ending to the events of the day before, he found himself at a loss. While he'd made a name for himself in the Zangyack military for his strategic plans, the only other option he could visualize was the defeat and execution of the entire Gokaiger crew. And, had he not returned to the Zangyack when directed, he would have fallen with them.

The thought felt like an ice pick in his heart. He'd betrayed them. There was no doubt about that, no escaping that truth now that it was so evident. If he thought back to all the times they'd saved each other, fighting as one...

_No._ He shut his mind away from the past, at least, for the time being. Don knew that he had to be a perfect picture of stone-cold military professionalism for what was coming next. He could get away with a lot, sure, but if he pushed things too far it could all crumble apart.

He wasn't willing to lose anything more. Not today.

The Earth shone up at him, all glimmering blue and green, and he took a deep, quiet breath. _It's now or never._ Squaring his shoulders, he turned and walked through the back-at-attention hall of soldiers to the bridge of the Gigant Horse.

* * *

><p>When Marvelous woke, it was with a splitting headache. He groaned, trying to fight back the pain long enough to remember where he was. The last thing he could really recall was being bound and gagged in a Zangyack transit ship, chained up in a corner to keep him away from the rest of his crew. As his mind processed the memory, his heart nearly sank to the pit of his stomach. <em>Maybe,<em> he thought to himself desperately, _if I open my eyes, it was all just a dream._

He opened his eyes slowly, bit by bit, so that the sudden light didn't make his headache any worse. At first all he saw was light, but then his eyes began to adjust and the picture faded into that of the interior of somebody's room. The room was sparsely furnished, colored in cold grays, with almost no decoration on the walls or any of the various surfaces. Marvelous couldn't help but think of Joe's room in the galleon, always kept meticulously clean of any sort of individuality.

His heart sank further when he remembered that Joe had been Zangyack military.

He was on the floor, prone, but with fewer bindings than when he'd last been conscious. Two heavy manacles were around each of his wrists, tying them together with one long chain running to a heavily-reinforced eyelet in the nearest wall. His legs were unbound entirely, and his gag was gone as well.

Something in his memory pinged, and he brought one slightly-shaking hand up to check his throat. Sure enough, his neck was ringed with the same kind of electric collar he'd freed Joe from nearly two years ago. His stomach heaved and he leaned his suddenly-sweating forehead against the metal wall, trying desperately to cool down and keep from vomiting until there was nothing left in his belly.

His freedom was gone. A fate worse than death.

* * *

><p>Don nodded to the two Goumin stationed outside the door to his room. He hadn't argued when the Emperor had demanded that his chamber be guarded at all times – he couldn't afford to argue, not now. There was far too much at stake to risk messing it up now. He took a deep breath, screwed up his courage, and entered his room.<p>

It was a far cry from what his old room had been, back in the years before he'd started his solo mission. This one was larger, more luxurious, far more fitting of a fleet captain than a simple commander. It was sparse, and that would change in time. But right now, there was one very important possession that was waiting for him.

Marvelous' face was pale, more pale than Don could ever remember seeing it. But the expression was hard and cold, and he could feel his heart seize up at the reminder of how badly he had betrayed his captain. How he'd betrayed the entire crew. He froze in mid-step, unsure if he could pull the courage together to walk any closer.

"What's wrong?" Marvelous asked icily, his words thick with irreverence. "Too much of a coward to face your prisoner?"

Each syllable hurt like a dagger in his chest, and with the door securely locked behind him, Don let the pain show on his face. "I might be," he admitted quietly, then forced his legs to walk forward until he was just outside Marvelous' reach. "I'm not sure many people would fault me for it." He slowly sat down on the floor and folded his legs.

The former captain grunted and looked away, outright refusing to meet Don's eyes. "More than you might think."

Don had been struggling with how much to tell him. How much to say up front, what to hide, what to dance around, all in the hopes of making things as easy as possible. But now, with Marvelous so obviously hurt, all he could think of doing was telling him everything. That maybe, if he was completely truthful, he could possibly be forgiven someday.

"I'm off-duty," he said quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on the far wall out of respect for Marvelous' pride. "Until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Whatever you ask me, I'll answer. Honest."

There came a light snort as an immediate response, followed by a long silence. Part of Don – the Doc part, he noted with a small amount of concern – wanted to fidget restlessly with something. But the soldier in him had already taken over, and he kept himself quiet and still and waited for Marvelous to reply properly.

Minutes went by, and then, "Why." It was only one syllable, but it sounded like it was choking him just to say it aloud.

"Because I'm a soldier," was Don's immediate response, not even thinking to ask for clarification on what the question was actually about. "Because if I hadn't done what I did, we all would have died."

"How long?" Marvelous shot back, like he'd been expecting the answer. "How long have you been a soldier? The whole time?" He kept his eyes low, staring intently at the floor.

Don nodded. "Ever since the beginning. They placed me on that planet for an independent assignment, assuming that any renegade or pirate activity in that area would likely go to an isolated, unaffiliated mechanic for assistance." They'd been right, of course, even if the crew had been the first victims to take the bait in nearly a year of careful waiting. "After Luka's first contact with me, I ran the plan by my immediate superior for approval before climbing aboard the galleon."

Marvelous laughed. The sound was bitter and hollow, something Don recognized from confrontations against Basco. Ice built up in the pit of his stomach as he remembered their conversation from their vacation at the hot spring. "So it wasn't real, was it? Any of it?"

"That's not necessarily true," Don said quietly, keeping his own eyes cast down towards the floor. For all he knew, the two of them were staring at the same spot. "I took on a persona for the crew, that much is true. But the best characters have a basis in reality, Marvelous. And, eventually...Doc became more a part of me than I was a part of him."

The former captain snorted and shifted his gaze to the wall. "Bullshit. If Doc was a part of you, you wouldn't have sold us out to the Zangyack."

The cold bit in Don's stomach shot up to his heart and he leaped to his feet. "There was no selling out!" he yelled down at Marvelous, before he caught himself and remembered to keep his voice low. "If anything of what happened down there could be called that, it was that I gave up what was the best time of my life in exchange for _yours._"

Marvelous, however, had no desire to keep their conversation quiet. He looked back up at Don and their eyes met with a challenging fire. "You betrayed us," he growled, his expression all stone and anger. "You betrayed the crew. There is no way you can rationalize that!"

In a flash Don was on his knees, covering Marvelous' mouth with his hand and pushing him down beneath him on the rough carpet. "Why do you think you're here?" he asked in a harsh whisper, his voice sounding foreign even to himself. "Why do you think you're even still alive, rather than strung up on a pike for a public execution on that planet's surface?"

There was a brief pause, for less than a second, before Marvelous reared back and tried to stretch his mouth wide enough to bite at Don's hand. But Marvelous was still used to Doc, not the Zangyack soldier Don Dogoier, and Don easily held Marvelous' jaw still. Instead, the former captain made do with glaring at Don angrily.

"I have rank and station here," Don hissed. "Nothing I've ever cared about. I lived day to day in the military because _I was good at it_. No other reason." Each word felt like it was tearing bits of his own heart with it, all things he'd thought a million times over but never had the courage or the opportunity to say. "I've put my career, my reputation here in jeopardy because of you. And personally, I think it's worth it." Slowly, carefully, he removed his hand from Marvelous' mouth, somehow keeping himself from wincing when he saw the bright red marks his fingers had left behind.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Marvelous spat, his eyes still burning with rage. "I won't be the one who bows down to you. Give me half the chance and I'll-" His voice broke, finally, a sob welling up from his throat.

Don recognized it far too well, and that understanding brought tears to his own eyes. "You'll what?" Half of it was a challenge, but the other half was a plea. A silent, desperate plea.

"...and I'll kill you." The words were quiet, broken, and lacked all the conviction his anger had previously held.

But words still held meaning, and Don felt the world beneath him fall away, if just for a second. He was free-falling, floating, anchorless, and then he snapped back to reality and remembered that Marvelous was chained and prone beneath him.

"Try," he finally said, the word choking its way from his throat. "You're not going anywhere, after all." He stood and quickly walked outside of the chain's reach, turning his face away so that Marvelous couldn't see the tears that were freely running down his cheeks.

Silence stood in the room with them for several long moments. Eventually Don heard the gentle rustling of the chain as Marvelous crawled back to sit against the wall. He was tempted to turn around, to gaze at the face that had given him so much support. But he kept his back turned and headed over to the unfamiliar bed in the corner.

He was a coward, after all.

* * *

><p>The lights were low, but not all the way off. He'd never heard an explanation for it, but Marvelous imagined it was so that even if a soldier were surprised in the middle of the night, he would still have the advantage of being able to see properly. It was the sort of practical thing he could imagine the military doing, which made it easier for him to believe.<p>

Marvelous couldn't sleep. Not just because of the persistent light, but because his body simply refused to let him rest. He had a hundred questions still swirling in his head, all things he wanted to ask and hear the answers to, if he could trust Don to actually tell the truth. Sure, his former engineer had said he'd be honest, but Marvelous couldn't exactly trust his word anymore.

The look on Don's face as he'd lost control popped into his mind's eye. He couldn't shake it, that initial shock and fear he'd felt at seeing such an emotion underneath the blond waves. It wasn't right, but it had been real. Terrifyingly real. And he couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, it hadn't all been a lie.

"Doc," he said quietly, into the not-quite-darkness, not entirely sure that his captor was awake. "Why am I here? Why aren't I dead?"

The silence remained, stretching through the large room until Marvelous was sure that he couldn't possibly have been heard. Then, as clearly as if they'd been talking normally, he heard a whisper come from the bed in the corner.

"Because I love you."


	9. Separation

Don woke before the alarm the next morning. He knew it was partly due to his body already readjusting to being on board a military craft. But he also couldn't deny the fact that he'd barely slept for more than ten minutes at a time during the course of the night. Worries, guilt, and Marvelous' lone question had kept him far more awake than he'd wanted.

For the first time in nearly eight hours, he allowed himself to glance back at the wall where his former captain was being kept. He'd heard the chain rustle several times throughout the night, never so violent as to suggest an escape, but enough to remind him of what he'd done. Now that he was officially awake, he could see that Marvelous had shored himself up against the wall, as far away from Don as he could possibly manage with the chain. He was sitting upright, but his head had drooped forward in sleep, and his shoulders rose and fell gently with each breath.

He was beautiful in ways Don couldn't even describe, and it hurt like a saber through his chest.

For several minutes he let himself stay in bed, silently watching Marvelous sleep. The other man was shirtless and shoeless, not from any practical necessity but to help better maintain the image Don needed to keep. He would even free Marvelous from the manacles if he thought he could trust him not to make his escape.

The thought sent a chill running down his spine. _I can't trust him._

An odd shadow on the floor drew his attention then, pulling his eyes and thoughts to wondering what could be casting the strange dark shape on the carpet. A moment passed, then two, before he realized that it was a stain, and he followed it back in spots to Marvelous' arms. He sat up and, without hesitation, rushed to the former captain's side and inspected one manacled wrist. Don was just able to confirm that the skin had been rubbed raw to bleeding before it was flung upwards into his face.

He took the blow and rolled with it, tumbling backwards and away until he was out of the chain's reach. "You're injured," he said finally, looking up to meet the fire in Marvelous' eyes.

"Not as badly as you'll be once I'm done with you," Marvelous growled back. Whether he'd been truly asleep a moment before was irrelevant, as he was most definitely awake now. He gestured with the bleeding wrist he'd just swung at Don. "Want another look?"

"Not really." The blond climbed to his feet and calmly walked to a set of drawers near the front of the room. He knew military procedure decently well, and he wasn't disappointed to find the first aid kit sitting in the top drawer. "I'd much rather bandage your wounds."

Marvelous snorted, and it reminded Don of the fire that burned inside of the former captain. The fire he loved. "Why? So you can just make more?"

Don walked back to the safe zone and settled into a crouch. "I could, you know," he said softly, in what he hoped was far from a threatening tone. "Nobody would be surprised. In fact, I'm fairly sure they even expect it." Memories of other action commanders and their various off-duty activities sent another chill down his spine, and he looked to Marvelous for a reaction.

All he got was an angry sneer. "Of course they would. Why wouldn't you torture your prisoner?"

The word pinged something in Don's head, and he placed the kit on the floor before sitting down himself. "Marvelous," he said quietly, and pushed the kit several feet forward into the reach of the chain. "You're not just my prisoner."

Marvelous gave him a suspicious look, but inched forward slowly towards the kit. "Oh?" he asked, the angry disbelief clinging heavily to his voice. "Then what am I?"

"You're half-dressed on a chain in my personal quarters, Marvelous," he said sadly. "What do you think you are?"

Silence fell as his hand hovered just inches away from the kit, and Don watched as the realization played out on the former captain's face. Don shook his head and climbed back to his feet, turning away to properly prepare himself to go back on duty.

He paused, though, when he heard Marvelous' voice again, this time more timid than he had ever wanted to hear it. "My crew," he heard him say quietly. "Where are they?"

"They're safe." Don took a deep breath before he turned around, and prayed that Marvelous couldn't hear the falter in his voice, or the lie in his eyes. "I'm going to see them now."

* * *

><p>Consciousness eluded Joe for a long time, but that wasn't something he was quite able to determine until he finally woke up. When he opened his eyes he saw dull gray walls, smooth and void of any defining features, on three sides. On the fourth was a door of thick, metal bars, and he was reminded almost immediately of the holding cell back on the Free Joker. Most importantly, he recognized it as a Zangyack detention block.<p>

His hands were bound behind his back, and he pulled on the bonds experimentally. They weren't too tight, but were definitely secure, and appeared to be chained to the wall behind him. He had just enough slack to stand up and move around, but not enough to reach the door to the cell itself. There was nothing outside his cell door but blank wall, but he soon found that if he moved to his right as far as the chain would allow, he could just make out another set of bars to the left.

And behind that set of bars, he swore he could see a glimpse of ivory lace.

"Oi," he said tentatively, not sure who might be nearby. His voice carried easily around the smooth walls, and there was barely a pause before he got a reply.

"Joe-san?" came Ahim's soft voice, followed by a gasp from what had to be an adjoining cell. Joe saw the glimpse of lace rustle slightly, and felt a small amount of relief that they were all kept so closely together. "So you are here, thank goodness."

"Ahim," he said gently, aware that his voice was fairly groggy from hours of disuse. "Where are we?"

"Zangyack ship, as far as we can tell," came Luka's voice from the other side of the wall. Where Ahim's voice had been soft and patient, Luka's was hard and cold. It wasn't out of character, but Joe knew the thief well enough to realize that it meant they were truly in trouble. "Not even sure if we're near Earth still or not."

Joe bowed his head, thinking hard to the last thing he could reliably remember. The crew had been marched onto a transit ship and kept separate, but then things went fuzzy and he couldn't recall anything between then and waking up in the cell. His mind quickly did the math and he felt his heart sink. "And Marvelous? Is he here too?"

There was a pause, and he could almost see the girls exchanging a look. "We haven't seen him since we woke up," Luka said slowly.

"We have not heard him, either," Ahim added.

"So either he's not here, or he's out worse than you were." The words were said fairly matter-of-fact, but Joe could still hear the worry in Luka's voice. It wasn't something he liked to hear. He was in the middle of searching for words to ask for more information when the door to the cell block very audibly opened. Knowing full well Zangyack's preference for mistreating prisoners, he kept his mouth shut and waited to see their jailor.

However, he heard the voice before he saw the face, and his jaw dropped wide open.

"In case it hasn't already been made clear," the familiar voice stated smoothly and evenly, "the three of you are prisoners of the Zangyack Empire. As war criminals, you have no rights, but your lives have been spared due to special dispensation by Emperor Ackdos Gil. Your basic needs will be met, but be prepared to spend the rest of your natural lives in these cells."

The speaker took slow steps forward as he talked, and when he walked into view Joe forgot to breathe. It was shocking enough to hear the frantic engineer's voice in such a calm and authoritarian demeanor, but seeing him in full Zangyack uniform was like something from a nightmare. "Doc," he nearly whispered, caught somewhere between anger and fear. "What the hell is going on?"

Don paused, hands clasped tightly behind his back, and turned his head to look at Joe. "As aforementioned, you three are prisoners of the Zangyack Empire. Is that difficult to understand?" His eyes were so cold they almost seemed blue, and Joe could feel a shiver ripple down his spine.

"Where's Marvelous?" came Luka's voice suddenly, dripping with angry accusation. "What have you done with him, you traitorous bastard?" The words were followed by a cracking sound and a yelp, and Joe watched as rage flared up in Don's icy eyes.

"Enough!" the blond barked, half-turning to look back towards Luka's cell. "They pose no threat. There is no need for violence." He gave Joe one last unreadable glance before moving back out of sight. "Your Captain Marvelous has also been taken prisoner. He is receiving...a different sort of treatment than the rest of you." There was something there, Joe could feel, hidden in Don's voice, but he couldn't quite see what it was. It bothered him.

"Doc-san," Ahim said quietly, almost meekly, and Joe felt a surge of hatred for anyone who caused the former princess to sound that way. "I would also like to inquire about Gai...your former teammate."

Joe felt his stomach lurch with a sickening twist. Somehow he'd managed to forget entirely about their extra member. When he thought back, he couldn't even remember the earthling being led on to the transit ship with the rest of them. His skin grew cold as Don paused before answering.

"The pirate known as Ikari Gai has been declared dead," the soldier finally replied, and Joe could hear Ahim's gasp as well as Luka's strangled cry. "You would do best to forget him." There were sounds of shuffling and footsteps, and then of the door closing, and the three of them were left alone with their thoughts.

* * *

><p>Gai stumbled through the forest, only partially aware of the terrain as he frantically tried to keep moving. It had been hours since he'd last heard any sounds of searching or pursuit, but he was nowhere near confident enough to slow down, let alone take a rest. Instead he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, getting himself as far away from the battlefield, as well as civilization, as possible.<p>

The first round of aerial attacks had just barely missed the rest of the crew, but one had hit Gai almost directly. He didn't remember much aside from the sudden, bright light and flashes of pain, but when he'd next opened his eyes he found he'd been flung off the battlefield entirely. Zangyack ships were taking off into the sky, dragging the Galleon behind them, and Gai was left with the possibility he was entirely alone.

At first he'd stuck close to the battlefield, trying to catch a glimpse of any crew member that was still around, but there were too many soldiers and he'd gotten too close to being spotted to stay around any longer. When he'd started moving he'd almost run into a few patrols, and while he was pretty sure he wasn't identified, he still couldn't be sure he hadn't been followed.

It had been more than a day since he'd slept, but his body was still running off adrenaline and he didn't think he'd be able to stop anytime relatively soon. It might have just been insomnia, but for the last half hour Gai was sure he was hearing rustling among the forest branches, a whirring in the sky that was obstinately following him.

He tripped and fell heavily against a tree, and in a brief moment of presumed genius he rolled around the trunk and hid himself on the other side. If he was going to succumb to exhaustion eventually, he'd be better off confronting any potential threat now, while he still had something resembling physical strength. He clung to the bark of the tree, focusing on his breathing and keeping his heart to a dull thud so he could hear the rest of the forest surrounding him.

Then there it was, the shuffling in the leaves, a fluttering in the air, and Gai nearly held his breath as he waited. When a rust-colored object flitted into view, he tackled it to the ground and held it there as it thrashed beneath him. "Stay quiet if you value your life!" Gai said in his best cornered-hero voice, and glared down at his victim.

"Gai!" it squawked up at him, flapping uselessly against the dirt and grass. "It's me! It's Navi!"

Sure enough, it was the not-bird that Gai had pinned to the ground, and he nearly fell over completely in shock. "Navi!" he cried out, then let her loose so she could right herself. "I, I'm sorry, I thought it was Zangyack, I thought-" His words ran out and he let himself fall forward to wrap the little robot in a huge hug.

"I'm glad you're alive too," Navi said, and patiently endured the hug until Gai was finally ready to let go. "But the Zangyack...they have the Galleon! What happened?"

Gai shook his head, wiping new tears away from his eyes. "I'm still not sure," he said, dragging an accidental streak of dirt across his cheek. "The entire fleet ambushed us, I think, and the next thing I know everyone is gone and the Galleon was being towed away." Frustrated, he pounded a fist into the dirt and let a few more tears fall. "Dammit, isn't there anything I can do?"

"There might well be," came a familiar voice from behind him, and Gai felt his blood grow chill. His gut directed him to grab Navi and tumble away, and he came back up with his body placed solidly between the robot and the voice.

"Basco," he growled up at the lanky privateer. "Here to finish us off? I warn you, it won't be easy." One hand stayed outstretched to protect Navi, and the other fell down into his jacket pocket and closed around his cellular. He had no desire to go head-to-head with Basco, especially after their last run-in, but he wasn't sure he had a choice anymore.

The cocky smile on Basco's face looked more forced than ever, and the privateer clucked his tongue impatiently. "Now, now, Silver," he began, his voice equal parts sing-song and annoyed, "I've got far bigger problems in front of me than an abandoned cabin boy and his pet bird."

"Bigger problems?" Gai couldn't help but repeat the words back questioningly. He thought for a moment to be insulted by the indirect jab at his combat prowess, but then a wave of exhaustion washed over him and he dropped to one knee to keep his balance. "Why? What's going on?"

Basco leaned up against a tree and crossed his arms, his eyes wandering upwards through the forest canopy as he spoke. "It seems a certain member of your crew was a Zangyack plant the entire time," he said conversationally. "He turned in the crew for the bounty and resumed his position among the Zangyack ranks."

The words seemed almost meaningless to Gai until his brain kicked back into gear and properly processed them. "A member of our crew..." he mumbled to himself, not quite understanding, even if a brief image of Joe came to his mind unbidden. "A Zangyack plant? That makes no sense!" The fierce pride he felt for the rest of his team came bubbling up to the surface, and he found the strength and balance to stand up confidently. "You're lying."

"You don't have to believe me," Basco said with a shrug. "After all, it's not like you have anything to lose, right?" His eyes darted back towards Gai, and a smirk started to spread across his lips as he lifted his shawl and pulled out a folded newspaper. "Just read this first, and when you're done, tell me again that I'm lying." With a flick of his wrist he tossed the paper so that it landed perfectly in front of Gai, front headline boldly visible with a picture of the Galleon underneath.

"Pirates defeated by Zangyack forces," Gai read aloud slowly, before crouching to pick up the paper. His lower lip began to tremble and he started to skim the article, pausing to read the more incredible bits out loud. "Defeated in battle...taken prisoner...Ikari Gai, presumed dead..." There was a stinging in his eyes as tears began pool and roll down his cheeks in a constant stream. "I can't...I don't..."

"Keep reading," Basco prompted, his voice an odd mix of confidence and resignation. Gai could only comply.

"In the end, it has been publicly revealed that the operation leading to their defeat was headed up by the undercover Elite...Forces...agent..." Gai's voice faltered and broke, and the paper fell from his shaking hands to scatter across the ground. "No. It...can't be..."

Basco spoke loudly, obviously assured that they were safely alone in the forest at that moment. "When presented with the unlimited reward, he made only three requests," he said, eyes back up towards the canopy. "One, every surviving member of the Gokaiger crew as his personal prisoner. Two, an assignment on a new ship. And three..." Basco paused for a moment to cluck his tongue in annoyance. "The public execution of one Basco ta Jolokia."

Gai blinked through his tears and managed to raise his gaze enough to look at the tree Basco was leaning against. "I don't understand," he said, not bothering to clarify what it was he was having trouble with exactly. He wasn't entirely sure he knew, anyway.

"Amusingly, it's the last piece of Zangyack military intelligence I received before they cut me off." The former privateer shook his head and pushed off from the tree, taking a wide stance to face Gai head-on. "And now we find ourselves in similar positions, Silver. Both of us running from the same enemy."

Gai was pretty sure he knew where Basco was going, but he couldn't believe it. His heart still couldn't believe it. All the evidence did was make his heart hurt even more, to the point where his mind wouldn't focus on anything except the pain in his joints and the tears streaming down his face. "I...I..." he croaked miserably, and only barely felt Navi nudge up against his shin.

"So then, pirate, you tell me," the former privateer continued, his voice dripping honey but holding all the confidence of a felon on the run. "Is there something you can do? Or, perhaps..." He walked forward, right in front of Gai, and lifted the boy's chin with one slender finger to look him squarely in the eye. "Is there something we can do together?"


	10. Anxiety

Marvelous spent the first day testing his boundaries in the empty room. The reach of the chain was the first thing to try, and he quickly found that it was long enough to allow him access to the room's toilet facility. At first he felt relief that such a basic need would be taken into consideration, but then he quickly remembered that he was being kept chained up in the first place, and the gratitude slipped away.

The manacles were too strong to be forced open, he discovered next, and tight enough that he couldn't even dream to yank his hand out without breaking most of the bones there. Even then there was no guarantee that it would be enough, and Marvelous shelved that idea for a last-ditch effort at a later date. No need to injure himself that greatly if it wasn't going to help him escape. He eyed the first aid kit – which he'd already utilized to bandage up the raw skin on his wrist – and decided he didn't want to give Doc an excuse to take him to any sort of Zangyack infirmary.

At some point the door opened and a lone Goumin entered the room, looking as nervous as if Marvelous was actively holding a gun to his head. Although, Marvelous had to admit, there was no guarantee he hadn't done exactly that to this Goumin at some point in the past, so it was hard to blame him. The Goumin inched forward carefully, until he was just out of the chain's reach, and slid a tray the last few feet towards Marvelous. Then he left, just as anxiously as he had arrived.

The tray held quite few different things, but the one common trait was that they were all food. Marvelous' first instinct was to push the tray away, refuse any sort of handout the Zangyack might give him. But then his stomach growled loudly, echoing off the walls of the room, and Marvelous reached for the leg of meat at the edge of the tray. If they were going to kill him, after all, they'd had plenty other opportunities than to resort to poisoning his food.

When Doc finally returned, looking exhausted and half dead to the world, Marvelous was sure he had a plan. If he couldn't get free, that was one thing. He was willing to accept that he was, unfortunately, a prisoner. However, he didn't necessarily have to be a good prisoner about it.

He ignored all of Doc's questions - "Did they feed you? Was it enough? Did you find the bathroom? Do you need a pillow?" - and instead waited until the blond had dimmed the lights and slipped under the covers. He gave it five, ten minutes, until he could hear Doc's even breathing as he succumbed to sleep, and then launched the best plan he'd been able to cobble together.

He sang.

He sang horribly. There were few things Marvelous would admit to being bad at, but singing was one that he never really cared about, one way or another. He could sing loud, that much was for sure, and he knew a ridiculous number of lyrics. Some of them were space pirate shanties, others were folk songs from his homeworld, but all of them were songs he could sing on a whim. And repeatedly.

Don, however, didn't react quite the way he was hoping. He'd imagined Don would get up, scream at him to shut up, lose his temper, do something to break the image of the reluctant captor that he was working so hard to cultivate. Marvelous wanted to anger him, to take him to the breaking point, make him reveal the monster he absolutely had to be underneath the blond curls.

Instead, Don simply sat up in bed, slowly, and turned to watch Marvelous. For a little while he stayed there, listening to the songs, green eyes open and sparkling in the low light. But when Marvelous faltered and sang the same song twice, he watched as Don stood up and slowly walked over to just outside the chain's reach.

"Please stop," he asked quietly, his eyes sad. Marvelous ignored him and sang on.

The blond moved so fast Marvelous couldn't begin to expect it, and the next thing he knew his arms were locked behind him and Don's hand was clapped tightly across his mouth. He could feel Don's breath, hot against his neck, and he realized with a sinking heart that he hadn't been anywhere near properly prepared.

"I'll ask again." Don's voice was painful to listen to, and Marvelous instinctively turned his head as far away as he could manage. "Please stop."

The former captain shook his wrists, rattling his chains and trying to yell against Don's hand. It was too early to give up yet. He still had far too much to figure out.

There was a sigh, light and warm across his skin, and for a moment Marvelous couldn't help but go slack in the restraints. "Then we'll have to do this the hard way," Don finally replied, then removed his hand, and Marvelous' world went black.

* * *

><p>The next day found Marvelous fastened almost directly to the wall, mouth covered with an ill-fitting gag. Don was already gone by the time he woke up, but the Goumin – or possibly another Goumin, they all looked the same to him – arrived to bring him food anyway. With Marvelous considerably less dangerous in his new position, the Goumin came all the way up to him and removed his gag to feed him by hand. The moment the gag was removed, Marvelous began spitting as many insults and threats as he could manage, only to be repaid with a sharp blow to the head. After the third such strike, Marvelous admitted defeat and allowed himself be fed before letting the Goumin gag him once more.<p>

Hours passed and Marvelous kept looking towards the toilet, growing slowly more desperate to use the facility. But nobody arrived to give him the opportunity, and when Don finally returned – looking more disheveled and exhausted than Marvelous had ever seen him before – he was almost desperate enough to plead. If the gag hadn't been there, that is.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way, you know," Don said eventually, perched on the edge of his bed with his shoes and armor half-removed. There was a lilt to his voice that puzzled Marvelous, something a little more odd than usual. "The plan was to lie low, make the regular reports, and that if the showdown ever happened we'd take them out easily." He pushed his fingers up into his hair, knocking the clips loose and scattering them across the floor. His ruffled hair struck Marvelous with a note of familiarity, something a little closer to the Doc he knew and loved.

"And then the crew never would have known," he continued quietly, eyes unfocused and staring at the distant wall. "_You_ never would have known. Everything would have gone on like it had and none of..._this_ would have happened." He paused for a long moment, obviously lost in thought, and Marvelous suddenly realized why Don was acting a bit off – the blond had obviously been drinking. Possibly heavily. And he wasn't entirely sure how capable Don was of holding his liquor in the first place.

Don laughed then, a hollow, ugly sound that turned what little was left in Marvelous' stomach. "I did what you told me to, Marvelous," he said suddenly, turning his empty eyes on Marvelous, still locked up against the wall. He stood up from the bed and walked over to sit next to his prisoner, back to the wall, eyes staring off towards the door. "I did what I could. This was all I could do, you know. They would have executed us otherwise. All of us."

Marvelous twisted his mouth into a frown, not entirely sure where the entire drunken soliloquy was heading. He knew full well that the Zangyack would have had the entire crew executed without a second thought, probably publicly, had they been given the chance. But even knowing that Doc's betrayal had saved their lives didn't help him reconcile the anger he had towards his former engineer. He yearned to bite back at him, goad him into a fight about who was right and who was wrong, but the gag stilled his tongue. Even whining wouldn't have done him any good, and he knew it.

"So I have a new plan. It's not a good plan, Marvelous, I know that." Don continued on, and Marvelous realized that although he was being spoken to, he wasn't being expected to respond. For some reason, he felt a lump in his throat at the thought that Don might be slowly losing his grasp on reality, but then he chalked it up to the alcohol – which he could smell now that Don was closer – and settled in for the long haul. "But it's the best I can think of."

Don leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging them tightly to his chest and sending another pang of familiarity stabbing at Marvelous' heart. "We'll lay low, you see. Play by the rules. I'll keep all of us alive -" His voice choked there, although Marvelous couldn't tell which part of the phrase had caused it. "- and when we get the chance, when the Earth is conquered and the Empire has moved on, we can go back. We can go back and grab the ultimate treasure, Marvelous."

The meaning of Don's words began to sink in to Marvelous' stubborn mind and he almost forgot to breathe for a moment. His eyes went wide and he turned his head as much as he could manage to stare dumbly at Don. "You get the treasure that way, and we get to live. And then we can go back to hunting treasure across the universe. Back to the way things were. To the way things used to be. The way things should be."

Marvelous swallowed heavily, the lack of moisture in his throat burning as he did so. He could see the logic behind Don's plan, but the soldier was forgetting that he'd betrayed the entire crew. No amount of promises or treasure could buy back the trust he'd sacrificed. The Doc he knew was smart enough to know that already. Doc wouldn't need it explained to him.

But this Don merely smiled to himself, a slightly-unhinged grin with empty eyes, and laid his head in the crook of Marvelous' shackled arm. Within moments he was asleep, and Marvelous wondered if he could hold his bladder for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p>"They know."<p>

Another day had passed and Don was pacing back and forth across the room, arms clasped tightly behind his back as he stalked the width over and over again. The unclipped waves bounced as he walked, with a little flip every time he turned on his heel to change direction. It was almost mesmerizing, Marvelous found, watching him so intently dedicated to his anxiety. Even if the anxiety itself felt sort of stupid.

"They know, Marvelous! They have to know!" Don's voice was harsh, excited, but kept at a volume low enough that it wouldn't travel outside the door and into the very public hallway. Despite the fact that Marvelous – and presumably, the rest of his crew – was very much a prisoner, it was becoming increasingly clear that their status as such was in some sort of precarious balance. A balance which, apparently, Don had taken on entirely as a responsibility.

The pacing paused for a moment as Don pushed his fingers up into his hair, knocking one of the clips free and sending it bouncing over to where Marvelous was still fastened to the wall. He watched it curiously, thinking back to when Doc would ruffle his own hair up in frustration, and wondered how much of that action was Don remembering Doc, or had just always been Don in the first place.

Marvelous was fairly uncomfortable with the fact that the line between Doc and Don was blurring so much in his head, and he wasn't sure how much of it was legitimate and how much could simply be chalked up to his current living conditions. At any rate, Don was almost hyperventilating with worry, and that was something Marvelous knew how to handle. That is, if he wasn't still gagged.

He waited until Don paused in his mutterings, then cleared his throat loudly once, then twice. It wasn't until after the second that Don looked over, eyes clouded with confusion, as if he'd almost forgotten that Marvelous was there. The former captain met his eyes, then nodded upward with as much meaning as he could muster. He saw the confusion wash over Don's face, followed by understanding, then the internal conflict of what the right choice was.

But it didn't take too long, and soon Don was at Marvelous' side, unfastening the gag and tucking it away in his uniform pocket.

"You understand, right?" Don said quietly, a little calmer now that he'd been just a moment before. If Marvelous had to guess, he'd say that his presence alone was enough to keep Don anchored to reality. "If they know, if they understand everything I've planned, then all this would be gone." He waved his hand vaguely, as if gesturing to Marvelous and the captive crew all at once. "I risked so much to keep us alive, to keep us together. I don't want it to have been a waste."

Marvelous moved his jaw experimentally for a moment before responding. His throat was a little dry, but not parched, and he was pretty sure he'd be able to speak without too much trouble. "What did you think was going to happen?" he asked, voice rasping but still audible. "You turned us over to the Zangyack. Did you expect them to be kind and merciful?"

Don was shaking his head fiercely before Marvelous even finished his second question. "Of course not. I didn't expect anything except my reward. And they granted it to me. But the problem lies in that the reward was based on a falsehood, Marvelous." His eyes slowly slid back into focus, and he tilted his head to look sideways at his former lover. "For you to be here, in this manner, there are certain assumptions that are being made. That I...indicated, during the audience. What puts all this at risk is the fact that it isn't true." For a moment their eyes met, then Don lowered his back to the floor. "At least, not anymore."

Silence fell, then was broken by Marvelous' disbelieving snort. "I'm not sleeping with you, Doc," he said as he turned his head away. Inwardly he kicked himself for still calling Don by his nickname, what had essentially been his pet name for the awkward engineer he'd fallen in love with. "You'll have to kill me first."

"I know." Don's voice came out as a whisper, his eyes still glued to the floor. "I know that, Marvelous. That's why..." His voice choked to a stop, and he shook his head to himself as he climbed to his feet.

Marvelous watched, still chained to the wall, as Don walked over to his bed and fell into it like the life had abandoned him. And he wondered, possibly for the first time, if it might actually have done just that.

* * *

><p>When Don returned to the room the next night, his anxiety over being caught had been seemingly replaced with a concern of a different sort. "Forgive me, Marvelous," he said, nearly as soon as he'd closed the door.<p>

The words took the former captain completely by surprise, and he found himself blinking several times to himself before he was able to look up at Don and ask, "Wait, what?"

Don shook his head and stalked over to the bed, where he sat down without once making eye contact with his prisoner. "They haven't found him yet. Apparently he was tipped off right before the announcement was made, and he went into hiding." He leaned forward, folding his hands together and resting his chin on them as he spoke. "They've searched all his typical coordinates – of course, he's too smart to go back to those. There's no record of a ship leaving orbit, so it's likely he's down on the surface. They're looking for him, of course, but it won't be as fast or easy as I'd wanted."

Thoughts and possibilities were swirling through Marvelous' head like a tornado, and he shut his eyes tightly to try and focus as he shook the maelstrom quiet. "I don't understand," he said as he opened his eyes again. "What – and who – are you talking about?"

Don turned to look at him then, confusion crossing his face as he worked out what Marvelous just asked. Then his eyes widened, and he pulled his gaze back towards the floor. "I...guess I didn't tell you, did I?" he said with a quiet chuckle. "One of my...requests was – is – a present for you." He paused noticeably in finding the right word to replace 'reward', something that aggravated Marvelous in its obliqueness. Possibly the worst part of his imprisonment was Don's near-constant insistence that it was in his best interest. Marvelous would much rather call a spade a spade, and a prisoner a prisoner. He just couldn't help but appreciate the honesty in owning up to one's own actions.

"A present for me," he said flatly, not even bothering to ask it as a question. "Why."

Again with the odd look. The more Marvelous saw it on Don's face, the more he wondered what was really going on behind those green eyes. "The one person who hurt you as much as I did," the blond finally replied, his voice nearly a whisper in the quiet room. "I ordered him dead."

For half a moment Marvelous had to think, had to wonder exactly who Don was talking about. Then it hit him in a rush of memory, framed in a dark moonlit night on a mountainside, and he couldn't keep himself from gasping the name. "Basco."

Don nodded grimly, shifting his hands from under his chin to clasped between his knees. "For you. I ordered him dead."

The words didn't make sense to Marvelous' ears. He could hear them just fine, and they theoretically made some sort of coherent sentence, but the meaning was lost on him as he ran through them over and over again. It took him nearly a minute of concentrating, while Don watched, until he finally understood what had just been said.

"You put out a bounty on Basco."

Don chewed his lip and tilted his head. "Not quite. We've sent out patrols to find him and bring him in. When he's in custody, there will be a public execution. You and I will both attend."

"That's crazy." The words spilled from his mouth before he could stop them, and Marvelous quietly prayed that he wasn't overstepping his boundaries. "Killing Basco isn't going to change my mind about you, Doc."

He watched as Don winced at the nickname, something he hadn't even realized he'd used. But he could see that it was bothering Don as much as it was bothering him, and he felt those blurred emotions smudge just a little bit further. "I know that," Don said softly, pulling his eyes back away from Marvelous. "But it doesn't change how I want him dead for how much he hurt you."

Silence fell for a moment, then two, and Marvelous found himself staring at Don. He wanted to look away, do anything but give Don the validation of having captured his earnest attention. But the thoughts swirling in his head were overpowering his self-control, and eventually he let his mouth open again and a few more words tumbled out. "Then what are you going to do about yourself? How much you've hurt me?"

The silence stayed for nearly a minute, and Marvelous watched as Don's shoulders slumped forward and his forehead touched heavily on his clasped hands. The green eyes fell shut, lightly at first, then squeezed tightly, and then he opened them and straightened himself back up. He tilted his head towards Marvelous, a sad smile playing across his lips.

"Maybe I'll just have to let you kill me, then."

Then he crawled under the covers and turned away towards the wall, and the conversation was over.

* * *

><p>It was late, too late, by the time Don returned the next evening.<p>

He opened the door, entered, took two steps into the room and stopped. When Marvelous got around to paying attention – after all, he wasn't about to look immediately interested in what Don had to say – all he saw was anxiety and fear painted across the soldier's face. It was enough to make him nauseous, which was unexpected in and of itself, and he floundered for something to say.

"Are you okay?" It was stupid of him to ask, and he knew it. What bothered him most was that he didn't know if he was asking in order to help Don feel better, or to calm his own nerves.

But Don just stood there, mouth spread thin, fingers digging into the flesh of his own palms. Eventually he couldn't take anymore and Marvelous looked away, staring at the blank floor instead of the heartrendingly pained face of his captor.

When he looked up next, Don had climbed into bed without a single word. Marvelous drifted off to an uneasy sleep, plagued with the unshakable feeling that something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

* * *

><p>Marvelous didn't have a good view of any sort of timekeeping device from his position at the wall. He'd been moved from the direct manacles to a pair of shackles with only a few feet of reach, and was still getting used to the limited freedom. But if he had to guess, he'd say it was a few hours before Don's regular return when the door opened and half a dozen Zangyack entered the room.<p>

Five of them were regular Goumin, but the lone Sugoumin stood tall above them as one of the flunkies slipped back outside to watch the door. The Goumin muttered among themselves quietly, giving Marvelous quick glances while the Sugoumin strode forward. All in all, Marvelous realized with a sinking heart, it was very obvious that this was something far from Zangyack official.

"'Captain' Marvelous," the Sugoumin taunted as it squatted down to grab Marvelous by the chin. "Look at you. Bound and chained in the quarters of the weakest commander I've ever seen." The monstrous claws squeezed at his jaw, and Marvelous struggled to maintain a indifferent sneer. "Pathetic."

Everything that Don had been hinting at for the past week came rushing back to Marvelous, and he blinked as he tried to swallow back his sudden nausea. "Can't hack it, huh?" he ground out, his voice little more than a whisper with his throat held at such an odd angle. "I guess even lowlife losers have to feel big and important somehow."

The Sugoumin growled and tossed Marvelous to the side, chains rattling as they caught him in midair and brought him slamming down into the floor. "You shut your ugly human face," the monster hissed, before bringing his foot back and kicking him sharply in the ribs. "After all you've done, the fact that you're still alive and unbruised is an insult to all of the Zangyack Empire." The Goumin in the background tittered to themselves, obviously in agreement with their supervisor. "I'm here to fix that."

The remaining Goumin began to swarm around them, and while Marvelous found the wherewithal to send one of them flying against the far wall, the other four easily caught hold of each of his limbs and held him splayed out across the floor. He struggled and kicked, but the chains and the Goumin were too much for his weakened state. A week of minimal food and restrained movement had left his muscles far too weak, and all he could do was growl as he was held firmly in place.

Marvelous was ready to try and fight for his life, but as the Sugoumin knelt between his spread legs, he began to wonder if it was his life they were really after in the first place. The large blue and silver claws pressed down on his stomach, breaking the skin and drawing lines of blood as they dragged downwards to rip off his flimsy excuse for pants.

Now that he knew that they weren't after his life – at least, not immediately – a more rational part of his mind started to scream instructions while the rest of his body froze in place. He hated himself for not reacting, for staying still, for sitting there and watching as all this happened to him, and he didn't even hear the loud thud against the door as it opened.

The two Goumin holding his legs down peeled off first, darting towards the door with their maces held high. But Marvelous didn't have the best viewpoint, and he found his mind had already partially detached from the situation in the first place. It wasn't until both Goumin went flying against the wall, hitting the metal with a pair of sickening cracks, that his mind snapped back into the present reality.

The second two Goumin let go of his arms to pick up their maces and attack, which gave Marvelous the opportunity to grab onto the chains for support while bringing his legs up to wrap around the Sugoumin's neck. Once he hooked his ankles together, he squeezed as hard as he could and yanked the Sugoumin sideways, down to the floor, revealing the fight happening in the center of the room. He was too occupied to pay it much attention, but Marvelous still couldn't help but notice the flash of blonde hair as it whirled through the mace swings.

Marvelous kept his legs locked and squeezed around the Sugoumin's neck, fighting against the monster's struggles and wild flailing. What it had in large and deadly claws, it lacked in dexterity, and in its current predicament could do little more than swing blindly in Marvelous' direction. A few blows hit, but nothing too major, and he waited for just the right angle before twisting his hips as hard as he could. His efforts were rewarded with a cracking sound, and the Sugoumin stopped struggling.

As he gathered his breath and his thoughts, he watched as Don twisted out of the way of one mace's swing, just to duck around and loop his arm across the other flunkie's throat. He brought the Goumin down across his knee and another snap echoed through the room. The last Goumin standing raised his weapon for a moment, then took a look around the room and realized he was the only one of the original group left. He faltered, the mace trembling in his grip, and it was enough time for Don to land a solid kick across his head and send the Goumin spinning to the floor, where he twitched once before laying completely still.

The silence that hit the room was almost deafening. Marvelous stayed still for nearly a minute, still watching Don as the blond took long, heaving breaths to calm himself down. None of the bodies moved, as far as he could tell, not even to breathe, and Marvelous began the awkward act of untangling his legs and pushing the Sugoumin's lifeless form as far away as he could manage.

It was another moment or two before Don turned his head to look down at Marvelous, eyes unfocused and hair untamed from the fight. The he walked forward, nearly stumbling as he crumpled to his knees and placed his head across Marvelous' still-bleeding thighs.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, just as Marvelous was about to summon the strength to throw him off. "I tried...I wasn't fast enough...I'm so sorry, Marvelous." Then Don brought his hands up to clutch at Marvelous' hips and, inexplicably, dissolved into tears.

* * *

><p>There had been little sleep the night before. Don eventually had to report in to his superiors, clean up the mess in his room, and do other likely official things that Marvelous wasn't about to pry into. And while Don was still a bundle of worried nerves, he couldn't help but get the feeling that Don's word had trumped the fact that six Zangyack had died in and outside his room that night.<p>

The realization gave him chills.

For the first time since his capture, he spent the day thinking. Not just musing over his situation, or dreaming up escape plans, but actively picking apart everything about the past week. He thought back to his relationship with Doc, on the galleon, and how perfect everything had seemed. He remembered the betrayal, how Don had exchanged their freedom for their lives, without caring about how any of the rest of the crew felt about it.

And he thought about the night before. How his stubbornness had led to a situation that could have gotten them both killed. What might have – would very likely have – happened if Don hadn't managed to interrupt.

Marvelous hated to lose. His pride didn't allow for it. But worse than that, he hated not having his freedom. And while he had been sitting and dwelling on the freedom he'd lost, he'd forgotten about the little freedom he still had. The freedom that was his only because Don willed it to be so.

When Don returned that night, looking two shades worse than death, Marvelous had already made up his mind. He waited until Don had pulled off his shoes and unbuckled his belt, just before the blond went to sit down on the bed.

"Doc," he said, quietly but firmly. He lifted his eyes up to meet Don's and saw the surprise etched across his face. "Come here."

The blond hesitated, of course. He paused long enough to make Marvelous begin to wonder if this wasn't going to work after all. But then he stood and slowly made his way over to just outside the reach of Marvelous' short chain. He crouched down, placing his hands on his knees and looking up at his former captain with curious green eyes.

Marvelous licked his lower lip as he struggled to maintain eye contact. "No," he said softly, and held his arms open. "Here."

The pause was shorter this time, although no less meaningful. But just as surely as Marvelous had expected, Don inched closer and tentatively fell forward into Marvelous' arms. Ignoring the screaming inside his own head, Marvelous let his arms wrap protectively around the blond's shoulders, holding him as close as he could possibly manage.

For a moment Don's arms twitched, before wrapping themselves around Marvelous' waist as Don buried his head into the bare chest. "Oh, _Marvelous_," he whispered, and all the former captain could hear was the scared voice of his timid engineer.

"Shh. It's okay, Doc," he found himself saying as he stroked the barely-tamed curls. "I'm here."


	11. Culmination

The first thing Don noticed when he woke up was that he'd slept. He'd actually slept, not just fallen into bed and closed his eyes, or sat there worrying until the morning came. No, he'd really fallen asleep, and was waking up feeling more or less rested for the first time in more than a week.

The second thing he noticed was that his head was lying on Marvelous' chest. He didn't need to open his eyes to confirm this – he could tell by the smell, the feel, the steady rise and fall as his captain breathed. As unbelievable as it was, it certainly explained how he'd been able to sleep.

He continued laying there for several more minutes, basking in the feel of Marvelous beneath him as he tried to gather his wits together. Slowly the memories returned to him, of Marvelous' acceptance, his reassurance, the night they spent together before Don had finally been able to drift off from exhaustion. He had a brief moment of panic in wondering what time of day it was, and then he remembered that he had the day off and he let himself relax.

Apparently that moment had been enough, though, and he felt Marvelous' breath catch as he began to wake. Don could feel him swim to consciousness enough to lift his head and see him there. "Morning, Doc."

His voice was raspy from sleep, but it was enough to make Don smile. He lifted his head and looked up to properly return the greeting. "Morning, Marvelous."

He let his head fall back onto the smooth skin, his smile lingering as he watched Marvelous settle into wakefulness. There was a brief moment of confusion that flashed across his captain's face, but then it vanished and Marvelous gave him a small smile. "Did you sleep well?"

Don nodded, not quite able to find the right words to express how well he had managed to sleep. Possibly, he wasn't able to find words at all. He just snuggled in closer and watched as Marvelous brought one hand up to lazily ruffle at his hair. The clips had fallen out a long time before, and after sleeping his hair was almost back up to its old curly mess.

It was like everything was back to the way it was supposed to be, and Don could almost ignore everything that had gone so wrong in the last week.

It couldn't last forever, though. Eventually Marvelous' brow furrowed and he squinted past Don, then looked at him with worried eyes. "Isn't it late?" he asked, although with more curiosity than concern. "Do you need to get going?"

Don shook his head against Marvelous' chest. "I've got the day off today," he said, and began to gear up for a full explanation of how they were going to be changing ships today, and then their new ship was about to leave orbit. But he was cut off as the entire ship rocked violently, sending the two of them tumbling sideways across the floor. Marvelous' chains caught him after a foot or two, but Don rolled all the way into the far wall, his head cracking off the surface just enough to make him see stars for several seconds.

The impact was accompanied by a terrible thundering on the other side of the ship, and when Don's vision cleared he looked up to see his captain pulling against his chains towards the door, eager for a fight. "Are we under attack?" Marvelous asked, a smile peeking at the corner of his mouth.

Don shook his head, more out of confusion than actually knowing the answer. "Who would attack us?" he asked, knowing the answer before he finished. But it didn't make sense, for Basco to launch any sort of offensive, especially on his ship. Even if the former privateer had found out it had been Don who'd made the order, he had nothing to gain by flying into the middle of the Zangyack fleet and attacking. The _Free Joker_ was a formidable ship, sure, but it wasn't invincible.

More importantly, Don was worried about Marvelous. It was obvious his captain was ready to fight, and if they were under attack, he'd want Marvelous free and fighting by his side. But at the same time Don wanted him safe. Marvelous had been out of action for several days, and even his ridiculous strength had to have weakened considerably during that time. Don could easily see him biting off far more than he could chew, and he couldn't guarantee he'd be there in time to save him.

He grimaced, but he knew what he had to do. He'd keep Marvelous in place until there was no other recourse, and he'd figure out what to do then. After all, this was a ship straight out of the Emperor's fleet – it was ready and prepared to defend against any and all invaders. And Don wasn't going to leave his room to find out what was going on. Not on his day off.

Don scrambled to his feet and placed himself firmly between Marvelous and the door. There was always the possibility that it had simply been a navigational error throwing them off course. Or maybe a contained explosion from somewhere near the front of the ship. He stood there, thinking through all the possible things that could have sent them flying like that, and how he could properly protect Marvelous in each situation.

He realized with sudden dread that staying entirely on a blind defensive was an increasingly bad idea, and he stalked forward to open the door and demand answers from the Goumin stationed outside. Don only had enough time to see one of the Goumin slumped against the wall before something struck him in the head, knocking him back into the room.

Combat reflexes took over and he rolled with the punch, coming up in a defensive stance as he surveyed his attacker. But his fists dropped as he and Marvelous noticed at the same time the invader's blue coat and long, dark hair.

"Joe!"

* * *

><p>When Gai had appeared in the brig, Joe had been overcome with relief that their cabin boy hadn't actually died in the attack after all. The moment Gai opened his cell door, however, Joe had bolted for the hallway as fast as his legs could take him. He'd only barely managed to yell back what he was doing before he was around the corner and following the wall, remembering the ship's layout and finding his way to the section that would commonly house the onboard commanders.<p>

When he saw one door being guarded by two very skittish-looking Goumin, he knew he'd found the right place. They went down easily, being nervous and unaccustomed to encountering a pissed-off pirate, and Joe had been ready to pry the door apart when it slid open on its own accord. It caught him off-guard, but not so much that he wasn't able to ready his fist and smash it into the blond curls that waited on the other side.

He watched as Doc rolled backwards, popping up into a defensive stance and facing him for only a moment before his face went slack with recognition. "Joe!" he cried, and his voice was echoed by somebody sitting behind him. When Joe looked around to see who else was there, he saw Marvelous, bound and bandaged with a look of wondrous shock plastered across his face.

Then he saw the collar locked around his neck, and Joe saw red.

"You bastard," he ground out, launching another punch at Doc's head. This time the blond dodged, with a speed Joe had never seen him move at before. He didn't let that stop him, though, and Joe kept swinging as he let the words tumble from his mouth. "You betrayed us. You captured us. I can handle that. But how dare you do _that_ to him!"

His next punch connected and he felt Doc roll with it, taking minimal damage and spinning around to face Joe with his hands up and spread wide. "I didn't have a choice!" the blond yelled back. For a moment Joe hesitated, his gut asking him why he was punching his teammate instead of rescuing him. Then he remembered the Zangyack uniform, despite the blond curls, and his rage returned. "It was the only way to save him. To save all of you!"

There was another voice, yelling in the background, but Joe was too focused on Doc to pay any attention elsewhere. Punching wasn't doing him any good, and he'd run off before retrieving his Mobirates from the jail vault, so he didn't even have access to his swords. What he did have, however, was brute strength that Doc didn't. He lowered his head and charged into Doc, catching him around the middle and slamming him hard into the wall. He felt the blond's chest deflate, and he shoved his shoulder against Doc's ribcage to bring the point home. "You call that saving?" Joe growled, keeping the pressure steady on Doc's torso as he looked up at his face. "Chained up and collared like a faithful _dog_?"

Something lit up in Doc's eyes then, flashing bright green and angry at Joe's words. "He's alive, isn't he?" he shouted, then Joe felt the wind rush from his own lungs as Doc brought a knee up into his chest. He fell away from the wall, leaving Doc free as he recovered. "You're all alive! There wasn't any other way."

"Of course there was another way," Joe insisted as he stood up straight again. "Even if it was all fighting and dying together, it would still be better than _this_!" He threw his hand out to gesture at Marvelous behind him. "Better than what you've done to him." He balled that hand into a fist and lunged forward again, aiming for Doc's pleading eyes.

Doc caught the punch, then twisted around to force Joe's momentum back again, sending Joe flying into the wall and rattling Marvelous' chains. Joe could feel his muscles aching, protesting from their lack of use, and he wondered when Doc had become so strong. For a moment he felt the creeping fear that he actually might not be able to win this fight, but he shook it of and climbed back to his feet. He had to keep fighting. He had to free his captain.

Then a hand clutched at his wrist, holding it tightly, and he looked back in surprise. Marvelous was there, still chained, but giving him the commanding look that the captain was supposed to have on his face. He reacted immediately, relaxing his stance and waiting for the command that he was sure would follow.

"Hold on," Marvelous said, his voice urgent but even. He turned his look on Doc as well, and Joe noticed with no small amount of surprise that the blond nodded and stayed his ground. Joe was about to turn back and demand an explanation when Marvelous continued. "What's going on, Joe? How are you here?"

Joe grimaced, annoyed that the simplicity of the situation had been suddenly muddled with questions and logic. "Gai freed us," he said slowly, meeting Marvelous' gaze for a moment before turning away. "Apparently he teamed up with Basco to get us out of here." He kicked himself immediately for mentioning Basco's name, knowing how much Marvelous hated to be reminded of his past with the monstrous privateer.

Marvelous did frown, his hand tightening around Joe's wrist until he almost lost feeling in his fingers. "With Basco?" Marvelous' eyes darted up to Doc, obviously angry, and Joe couldn't help but feel like he was missing out on an important piece of the puzzle. "Where are they now?"

"Finding our Mobirates, and the keys. Once we've got everything, we're getting out of here." Joe gave Marvelous a pointed look, making it as obvious as possible that their captain was considered one of the most important things to retrieve. He hadn't quite gotten as far as to ask why Marvelous was bothering to keep him from attacking Doc, but he wasn't sure he was ready for that conversation in the first place.

"Then you're here to rescue me," Marvelous pointed out, and Joe acknowledge the fact with a short nod. His eyes darted to Doc, curious to see if their former engineer had anything to say about the matter. But the blond was quiet, his mouth a thin line as he watched the conversation unfold. When Joe met his eyes he looked away, and Joe felt a small surge of pride at the little victory there.

"...understood," Doc said quietly, so quietly that Joe almost didn't hear him. But he did, and he watched as Doc walked quickly over to a set of drawers and pulled out a complicated key. He held it in his hand for a moment, as if contemplating its existence, then caught Joe's eye and tossed it in his direction. Joe reached up to catch it, stunned at how easily Doc had just given up his most prized possession. But he wasn't going to let that delay him for long, and he immediately went to work freeing Marvelous from his chains and collar.

They were on their feet within seconds, Marvelous stretching his legs and bouncing from heel to heel as he worked at regaining his strength. When he finally nodded at Joe, the first mate turned and headed towards the door, deliberately blowing by Doc on his way.

"Wait," Marvelous said, and the word twisted the meager contents of Joe's stomach. "Doc. We should..."

Joe set his jaw and whirled around to look his captain in the eye. "We should what?" he demanded, not even looking in Doc's direction. "Don't you dare say we should take the traitor with us. Not after how he betrayed us. Not after how he betrayed _you_."

He watched as Marvelous glanced over to Doc, his face an odd mixture of concern and disappointment. Joe could tell that he was having trouble finding words, trying to figure out what to say that would properly convey what he was thinking.

Joe would have none of it.

"Let's go," he said urgently, turning around to open the door back to the hallway. It slid open and he readied himself to step over the Goumin bodies he'd left there, only to find the world spinning around and his windpipe temporarily blocked off. He could see the shock on Doc and Marvelous' faces as an arm tightened around his neck, unaffected by his hands as they scrabbled for freedom.

"Yo, Marvey-chan," came a familiar sing-song voice, and as Joe caught a glimpse of white feathers he felt his blood turn to ice. "Why don't we make a trade?"

* * *

><p>Things had been changing so quickly, Marvelous wasn't sure he could keep up. When Joe wanted to walk out without Don, he'd been so lost as to an answer that he was sure his brain was going to melt.<p>

But now, seeing his first love holding his first mate by the throat, he wasn't even sure what he was feeling. He just knew he had to fix things, and fast.

"Basco," he managed to growl, finding his old familiar scowl as it spread across his face. "You bastard. Of course you wouldn't just help us out of the goodness of your supposed heart."

Basco gave him his mocking smile, perfect and quaint except for the sword that was now hovering above Joe's chest. "Oh, goodness is relative, Marvey-chan," the former privateer responded. "I think it was pretty good of me to help Silver out enough to get here in the first place. All I want now is to collect on my payment."

Marvelous sneered, forgetting entirely that he was mostly naked and still bandaged from his time in Don's room. "What do you want from me? I don't even have my Mobirates." He could see Don twitching anxiously out of the corner of his eye, and he wondered if the blond had any sort of plan in mind. Marvelous knew he certainly didn't. "What can I trade you that you can't already take for yourself?"

The smile on Basco's face faltered for a moment, and Marvelous could see his arm tighten around Joe's neck. "The keys, Marvey-chan," he said as though he were talking to a child. "All of them. They weren't in the vault, so therefore, you must know where they are." The sword drifted closer to Joe's chest, the tip drawing tears into the collar of his shirt. "Give them to me and I'll let your pretty little first mate live."

"The keys?" Marvelous hadn't thought about the Ranger Keys in days, let alone wondered where they were. He'd assumed they'd been confiscated with the rest of their weaponry when they'd been captured. If they weren't in the ship's vault, then he hadn't a clue where they could be. "Like I'd know! Let him go, Basco."

Basco narrowed his eyes as his smile finally faded away. "Give me the keys and he lives," he said, his voice low and warning. "And if you really never want to see me again, give me the galleon as well."

Marvelous balled his hands up into fists, his fingernails biting angrily into the flesh of his palms. He couldn't possibly give in to Basco's requests, even if he weren't half-naked and trying to escape a Zangyack ship. His mind went through every sort of plan he could think of and was coming up blank when Don took several steps forward, putting himself between Marvelous and Basco.

"They're not here," Don said slowly, raising his hands in a show of good will. "They weren't found on board the galleon when we captured it, either. We only have their Mobirates and one key apiece." The words took Marvelous off guard, and he couldn't help but wonder if Don could possibly be telling the truth.

"Like I'm about to believe that, coming from you," Basco sneered, turning his sword away from Joe and pointing it straight at Don. "Elite Forces scum. You ordered me dead. Why?"

Marvelous could no longer see the expression on Don's face, but he could see that the blond was slowly, minutely, inching his way closer to Basco and the outstretched sword. "Revenge," Don said with a small shrug. "You hurt Marvelous. I wasn't going to let that stand."

Basco's head twitched to the side slightly, and his scowl gradually turned into a look of utter surprise. "You two," he said, shock turning to disgust in his voice. "The two of you are...in love?"

Joe gasped, and although Marvelous couldn't tell if it was from lack of air or actual surprise, he felt the need to turn his eyes away nonetheless. He'd been trying to convince himself for the last week that his feelings for Don were gone, that he was able to move past the betrayal and focus on what was really important. But just as the memory of Basco's betrayal still hurt, so did the idea that his feelings for Don might have disappeared. Marvelous chewed on his lower lip, completely at a loss for words.

"Let Joe go," came Don's voice, steady and even, and Marvelous brought his eyes back up to see that Don had taken another full step forward. The two were now separated only by the length of Basco's arm and the sword, with the point just inches away from Don's chest. "Then we can talk about the keys."

The sneer on Basco's face turned desperate. "I don't think so," he said, then glanced past Don to catch Marvelous' eye. "Say goodbye to Blue, Marvey-chan."

Basco's arm began to pull back, correcting its angle for thrusting the sword into Joe's chest. Marvelous stared, blocked by fear as he watched everything unfold, not even sure if he could force his weary joints to move forward and try to save Joe in the first place. His brain screamed at him to dive forward, even if it meant taking the blow himself to save his first mate. But not only was he too far away, Don was between them, and Marvelous knew without trying that he wouldn't be able to close the gap in time.

Then Don moved, as quickly as he did in battle the other night, and suddenly the blond was in between the sword and Joe. Don held Basco's arm at bay long enough to knock Joe sprawling to the floor, then twisted the arm around to go plunging down at Basco's stomach. It missed, however, as Basco realized what was happening and turned the sword to slice into Don's abdomen instead.

The Zangyack uniform, while sleek with its minimal armor coverage, wasn't enough to stop the blade. Marvelous watched as a look of resignation spread across Don's face, and he grabbed at the sword to pull it down with him as he fell to the floor. Bright red blood began to leak around his fingers and onto the floor, and Marvelous felt like his consciousness was detaching completely from his body.

He watched as Basco's body collapsed, as Gai pulled his spear from the privateer's side, dripping green blood. Joe and Gai exchanged words, and then Gai was there with his arm underneath Marvelous' shoulder, picking him up from the floor and pulling him from the room. His legs wouldn't work, though, until Joe had pulled Don into his arms and followed them out into the hallway.

The four of them moved through the ship's corridors, until they came to what had to be the doors to the bridge. The doors were bored completely through by the tip of the GoJyuDrill, and Marvelous dimly realized that the bridge had to have been completely stripped away by the impact. Luka and Ahim were defending the entrance into the drill, and the six of them boarded together.

Gai piloted the drill, now towing the galleon along with them, away from the ship as Marvelous watched from behind the cockpit. It was like the drill hadn't landed at all, the ship looking as complete and intact as it had to have been just an hour ago. Then there was a flash of waving fabric as Furaimaru dropped the illusion, and explosions began to rock the sides of the half-ruined ship as the crew escaped into the Earth's atmosphere.

It was then that Marvelous decided to take a nap.


	12. Resolution

Marvelous nodded to each one of his crew in turn. Their faces were mostly stony, with little real expression, and he couldn't shake the sinking feeling that they were patronizing him. Treating him with kid gloves, as though he might be something easily broken if improperly handled. But he stood, turning away and walking down the hallway as slowly as he could manage.

He was still getting used to walking on the galleon, now that it was sailing on water instead of air. They'd landed it in the ocean after the escape, hoping to throw off any Zangyack searches, and it seemed to have been fairly effective so far. Marvelous could count the number of attacks they'd had since on one hand, and it'd only been a week.

Against all odds, the Zangyack had been fairly quiet since their escape. Damaras had been on the bridge of the ship when Gai had smashed GoJyuDrill through it, and the newspaper had reported him dead a few days later. Ahim had been the first to point out that the paper's obituaries hadn't been entirely accurate as of late, but Marvelous insisted on counting it as a win. That didn't mean they'd let down their guard, but he wanted to bring some sort of accomplishment away from their whole ordeal.

Basco, however, had somehow managed to survive their encounter. From what they could tell, the order of execution still stood, but he'd been placed on the wanted list with the rest of the Gokaiger crew. Once or twice Luka swore she'd caught a glimpse of the _Free Joker_, but it was always in passing and they hadn't yet seen Basco himself. Marvelous, however, had a gut feeling that his nemesis wasn't quite dead yet.

The keys, every single one of them, had been flitted away by none other than Navi the moment the crew had been attacked on the surface. She'd confessed that she'd done it without orders, but felt that it was the best thing to do, considering the situation. Marvelous had given her a firm pat on the head and thanked her for her foresight, something he was sure would come back to bite him in the ass at some point in the future.

The hardest part had been dealing with Don's injuries. The wound hadn't been fatal, but it had been serious nonetheless, and Marvelous refused to listen if anyone tried to suggest not treating it to the best of their ability. For the first several days he'd stood guard himself outside of Don's room, keeping a careful eye on anyone who came or went during the course of his treatment.

But Ahim and Gai saw that Don was properly treated, and he'd even finally woken up about two days before this meeting with the crew. Marvelous regretted waiting so long to have the talk with the rest of the crew, but he needed to be sure of what he was saying before he went to the trouble in the first place. Soul-searching was a much more difficult task than he wanted it to be, but he wasn't about to half-ass it. Not when something so important was on the line.

Marvelous paused outside of the wooden door, his hand already settled on the knob. His mind flashed back to that first night, curled up against the door and coaxing Doc into letting him in. The plaid sheets twisted and flung all around the room. The look on Joe's face when he'd been caught leaving the next morning. All of it sat in his memory like an anchor, weighing him to the present.

He swallowed, then let himself in.

Don was fastened to his bed at his wrists and ankles, using a set of manacles Marvelous had hoped they'd never need to use. Granted, Don hadn't yet tried to escape, but Marvelous wasn't willing to take the chance and trust him. Not yet.

The door shut behind him with an audible click, and Don's eyes blinked open to see who had just entered the room. "Marvelous," he said with a tired grin. "It's good to see you."

Marvelous walked over to the chair that had been kept by the bedside, hands clasped tightly in front of him. He wasn't sure how Don was going to take the news, but he'd already decided that Don didn't have a choice in the first place.

"I spoke with the crew," he began, his voice cracking despite having just used it in the main cabin minutes ago. He went through a dozen different ways of saying it in his head before gritting his teeth and meeting Don's eyes directly. "They don't trust you."

Don laughed, weakly, then winced as the movement pulled at his injury. His stomach was tightly wrapped with bandages, but Marvelous could tell it still hurt. "Well, of course," he said, his voice an odd mixture of Doc's relaxed tone and Don's certainty. "I can't expect them ever to, really."

"I agree with them," Marvelous continued, letting his eyes drift away slightly.

The lightness fell out of Don's voice. "I understand."

Marvelous took a deep breath and looked out the porthole window. The sun was setting on the horizon already, even though it'd been just past lunch when he'd sat down with the crew to talk. But it was a gentle sunset, reflecting orange and red off the water, and for some reason it put Marvelous at ease. "But you're my crew, Doc," he said finally, his voice painfully strained. "And I'm not getting rid of you that easily."

He heard the sharp intake of breath, and could feel Don's eyes as they turned to stare at him incredulously. Marvelous could hardly believe the words himself as they tumbled from his lips. "You're to stay here indefinitely," he went on, unable to stop himself now. "I can't guarantee you'll ever leave this ship again. I'm not saying it's impossible for you to gain back our trust, but..." Marvelous let his eyes drift back down to meet Don's green ones. The emotion he could see there almost knocked him off his chair, but he swallowed once and went to finish. "But it could happen. With enough time."

"Marvelous..." Don sobbed, eyes brimming with tears. "Thank you."

The captain couldn't watch anymore. He stood quickly, nearly knocking the chair over in his haste back towards the door. His hand was on the knob, the door half open when he caught himself. He needed to say it, if only just once. Almost breathless from the tightness in his chest, Marvelous managed to pause long enough to say the only thing left on his mind.

"I love you, after all."

* * *

><p>NOTES:<p>

I can hardly believe this is finally finished.

First of all, I absolutely have to thank ladyisana for being my awesome and lovely beta reader, and catching my errors before I posted them. Also, so much love and thanks to curryjolokia, butyoumight and borrowedphrases, who have given me more encouragement in my writing than I think I've ever gotten before. Most importantly, my husband, for giving me this idea in the first place, even if I took it in an entirely different way than he probably imagined.

Lastly, but not at all least, every one of you who read this entire thing. It means more to me than you can probably imagine.

3 3 3


End file.
